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RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS 



BY 



HENRY B. STANTON 



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NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1 88Y 
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Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1885, by 

Henry B. Stanton, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 

Henry B. Stanton, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothers. 



All riijftts rt served. 



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Printed by Wynkoop, HalUnbMk A Co. 



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PREFACE TO THE TIIIIID EDITION. 



Though no portions of tlie liist anJ second editions of 
this work were on sale, they were soon exhausted in supply- 
ing calls on me for copies. The requests in numerous news- 
papers and letters that I would place the book where it could 
be purchased, amounted almost to k rebuke for my not hav- 
ing done this. In compliance with this desire, I have spent 
a few weeks in preparing a third edition, which will be issued 
and sold by a book-publishing house. The new matter in 
this third edition makes the volume about two thirds larger 
than the second edition, and about three times as large as 
the first. 

This production is neither a history, a biography, nor an 
autobiography, but is exactly what it professes to be, namely, 
some " random recollections " of the writer. It will be well 
to read it from that point of view. Such value as this draft 
on my memory may possess is mainly due to the fact that in 
describing events and men I have usually told only what I 
personally knew of them ; and, perhaps better than all, I have 
tried to stop when I was done. 

H. B. S. 

Tenafly, N. J., September, 1886. 



NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS. 

Henry B. Stanton, tlie author, died suddenlj^ on .January 14tli, 
1887, in New York. He was busy correcting the proofs of this 
book the day before he died. H. & B. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Author's Birthplace. — Pachaug, Connecticut. — Jewett City. — ■ 
The Author's Ancestry. — Thomas Stanton, the Indian Inter- 
preter, and William Brewster, the Pilgrim Father. — Indian 
Tribes in New London Count}-. — Sachems Uncas, Sassacus, and 
Miantonomoh. — Extermination of the Pequods in 1637. — Bene- 
dict Arnold. — Massacre at Groton Heights in 1781. — The Stan- 
tons who Fell there. — War of 1812-15. — Commodores Hardy, 
Decatur, and Perry. — Bombardment of Stonington. — Perry De- 
scribes his Victory on Lake Erie. — "Don't Give up the Ship." — 
Bitter Politics and Blue-Laws Page 1 

CHAPTER 11. 

Puritan " INIecting-house " at Pachaug.— Freezing as a Means of 
Grace. — Musical Instruments and Timepieces. — The Clergy. — 
Doctors Hart, Bellamy, Hopkins, and Lorenzo Dow. — The Bur- 
roughses.— The Westminster Catechism. — Connecticut Calvin- 
ism vs. Rhode Island Liberalism. — The Deacon's Horse-race on. 
Sunday. — Schools, Teachers, and Books. — Nathan DaboU, the 
Arithmetician.— George D. Prentice, Poet, Wrestler, and Found- 
er of the Louisville Journal. — Celebration on July 4, 1824, at 
Jewett City. — Toast to Henry Cla}'. — La Fayette at Jewett City 
in 1825 11 

CHAPTER III. 

Journey to Rochester in April, 1826.— New York City had 150,0C0 
Souls. — Tammany Hall. — The Bucktails.— The City Hall.— 
Albany's Population, 15,000. —The Old Capitol. --Legislative 



VI CONTENTS. 

Leaders: Younp:, Root, Frank Granger, Golden, Livingston, 
Silas Wright, Tallmadge. — Governor De Witt Clinton, the 
Magnificent.— The Erie Canal jnst Completed.— Utica.— Syra- 
cuse. — Rochester in 1826. — Anti-Masonic Excitement. — Thurlow 
Weed's Dingy Newspaper, Sliabby Dress, and Empty Pocket. — 
Henry O'Reilly Issues at Rocliester, in 1826, the First Daily 
Journal West of the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. — Edmund 
Kean, the Tragedian, Performs in the "Iron Chest" at Roches- 
ter.— Sam Patch Twice Leaps the Genesee Falls and is Drowned. 
— Gerrit Smith and Fanny Wright Speak at Rochester.— Samuel 
Wilkeson Constructs the Harbor at Buffalo Page 21 

CHAPTER IV. 

Horatio Seymour when a Cadet ; his Father, Henry Seymour. 
— The " Immortal Seventeen " Senators. — Marcy, Flagg, 
Bouck in 1826-27. — Death of De Witt Clinton in 1828; Mar- 
tin Van Buren and Benjamin F. Butler's Eulogiums on Him; 
their Drift and Purpose. — Van Buren at Rochester in 1828; 
His Variegated Dress. — Roscoe Conkling's Style. — Presidential 
Struggle between Adams and Jackson in 1828. — Van Buren 
Runs for Governor to Help Jackson, and is Chosen. — Smith 
Thompson and Solomon Southwick also Candidates. — Jackson 
Elected President. — Van Buren Appointed Secretary of State. — 
Young Men's State Convention at Utica in 1828; the First ever 
Held in the Union ; William H. Seward Presides; his Unexpected 
and Embarrassing Nomination for Congress in 1828; he Declines 
to Run 29 

CHAPTER V. 

Courts and Coun.sellors at Rochester in 1827-30. — Daniel D. Bar- 
nard. — Addison Gardiner. — Samuel L. Selden. — Occasional Vis- 
itors. — Elislia Williams. — John C. Spencer. — Daniel Cady. — 
Henry R. Storrs. — Millard Fillmore. — William II. Seward and 
others. — Thurlow Weed Chosen to the Assembly in 1829. — "A 
good enough Morgan till after the Election." — Weed Founds 
the Albany Evening Journal in April, 1830. — The State Mends 
William L. Marcy's "Pantaloons." — The Patch a Campaign 
Issue when he Ran for Governor. — John W. Taylor, of Sara- 
toga, and the Missouri Compromise.— Marcy and Silas Wright 



CONTEXTS. Vll 

on its Repeal. — The Wilmot Proviso. — Marcy and Wright Com- 
pared. — The Rochester Clergy in 1830. — Charles G. Finney, the 
Famous Evangelist. — His Pulpit Oratory Page 35 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Author Goes to Lane Seminary in 1831.— President Lyman 
Becclicr Tried for Heresy at Cincinnati. — Henry "Ward Bcechcr 
Says liis Father is " Plagued Good at Twisiing." — New and Old 
School Theological Magnates. — "In Adam's Fall we Sinned 
all." — Dr. Beman's Parody. — Dr. Beecher's Eccentricities. — 
First Anti-slavery Speech. — James G. Birncy, and General Bir- 
ney, his Son. — "Boys, Keep your Eye on that Flag." — First 
Mob. — Anti-slavery Debate at Lane in 1834. — Its Consequences. 
— Early Anti-slavery Career. — The Author Addresses the Mas- 
sachusetts Legislature on Freedom, in 1837. — The Epoch of 
Mobs. — East Greenwich. — Utica. — Boston. — Newport.— Provi- 
dence. — Bishop Clark of Rhode Island. — Methodist Churcli 
Burned. — Pennsylvania Hall Burned. — Quaker Meeting-house 
Sacked in Portland. — John Neal, the Poet, Puts the Mob down. 
— Senator William Pitt Fcssenden. — "I am that Person." — Mob 
in Norwich, Connecticut. — Mobbed in many States. — Never in 
Vermont 43 

CHAPTER VII. 

John G. Whittier and the Author Visit Gettysburg for Anti- 
slavery Lecturers. — Whittier's Services to Liberty. — Caleb Cush- 
ing a Candidate for Congress in 1838. — Whittier Gets a Letter 
that Averts Cushing's Defeat. — Origin of the Republican Party. 
— Peculiar Honors paid to John Quincy Adams in 1837. — 
Author at AYashington in 1838. — Adams and the Right of Peti- 
tion. — Speaker Polk. — Latimer's Case. — The Reel on Mr. 
Adams's Desk. — Vice-President Dick Johnson Compared with 
Van Buren as a Presiding Officer.— The Lions in the Senate in 
1838. — Foreshadowing the Methods for Overthrowing Slavery. 
— The Author's Early Newspaper Productions. — Sylvester Gra- 
h;:m, the Dietetic Reformer; his S3'stem 56 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Abolitionists and the Constitution. — Anti-slavery Leaders: Garri- 
son and others in Boston; Tappan and others in New York; 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Smith and others in Central New York; Lovcjoy and others in 
the Western States.— Celebrated Women: Prudence Crandall; 
Mrs. Child; The Grimkes; Mrs. Mott; Lucy Stone; Harriet 
Beecher Stowe; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Susan B. Anthony. — 
Leading Colored Men; Frederick Douglass; Robert Purvis.— 
Eccentricities of Abolitionists. — A Motley Group in Boston. — 
Father Lampson and his Scythe-snath. — Crazy George Wash- 
ington Mellen. — Disturbing Eeligious Meetings. — Stephen S. 
Foster Lnitatcs George Fox. — Charles C. Burleigh's Vile Gar- 
ments Torn off and Carried away. — Rev. Dr. Channing Eulogizes 
Burleigh's Oratory. — Controversy between Garrison and Wendell 
Phillips.— Lord Timothy Dexter Page 64 

CHAPTER IX. 

. Tour in Europe in 1840.— Current Description of Author's Travels. 
— The Main Object of the Tour. — World's Anti-slaver3' Con- 
vention in London. — Leading Members. — Distinguished Women. 
— Haydon's Large Painting of the Convention; his Anecdote 
of the Iron Duke. — House of Peers. — Scotch Church Debate. — 
Brougham Speaks. — Melbourne, the Premier. — Lord Lyndhurst, 
a Boston-born Boy. — Wellington Speaks on an Irish Question. — 
Earl Grey Enters.— The Reform Bill of 1832.— Grey's Warning 
to the Peers to Set their Houses in Order. — Sydney Smitli and 
Dame Partington. — Gorgeous Pageant at tlie Funeral of Earl 
Durham, Sonin-law of Grey, and the Persecuted Ex-Governor 
of Canada 74 

CHAPTER X. 

The House of Commons.— Debate on Canada. — Macaulay's Speech. 
— Lord John Russell. — Tlie Lions of the House. — O'Connell 
Aims a Stinging Arrow at Disraeli, the Future Beaconsfiekl.— 
Stanley, the Inclioate Earl Derby, Collides with Howick, Son and 
Heir of Earl Grey. — Sir Robert Peel Compared with Clay, Cal- 
houn, and Webster. — Gladstone, "The Rising Hope of the 
Stei-n and Unbending Tories." — Talfourd. — Bulwcr's Dandy 
Dress. — Anecdote of Brougham and Buxton. — Clarkson's De- 
scription of Wilberforce's Oratory. — ]\Ianners in the English 
Commons and the American Congress Compared. — Tlie English- 
man's H. — Oratory in America and Great Britain. — American 
Snobbery. — Joseph H. Choate and William E. Forster before 



CONTENTS. IX 

the Uuion League ClaL. — Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, Sergeant 
Ballantyne, and Matthew Arnold Facing American Audiences. — 
How they Appeared . . Page 83 

CHAPTER XI. 

Westminster Hall. — The Courts: Lords Cottenham, Deuman, and 
Abinger, Sir Frederick Pollock, and other Members of the 
Bench and Bar. — In France. — Deputy Isambert and Advocate 
Cremieux. — The Great Napoleon's Mausoleum in Preparation 
on the Banks of the Seine. — Napoleon, "the Pretender," Seized 
while Raising a Rebellion at Boulogne. — Return to Eogland. — 
London in a Fog.— William the Conqueror and Battle Abbey. — 
Runuymede and Magna Charta. — Bosworth Field and Richard 
III — Cromwell's Schoolhouse, Mansion, and Farm. — Judge 
Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes. — William III. and the Battle 
of the Boyne. — Old Sarum, the Model Rotten Borough. — The 
Chartists and their Creed. — Main Cause of their Failure. ... 93 

CHAPTER XII. 

Some British Poets. — Thomas Campbell. — In the London Con- 
vention he Ridicules American Poets. — He is Answered. — 
Ebenezer Elliott. — James Montgomery — Lord Byron's Widow. 
— His Daughter, Ada Augusta — Thomas Carlyle. — He Calls 
Victor Hugo a Humbug, and Criticises Emerson. — In Scotland. 
— Rev. Doctors Chalmers and Wardlaw as Pulpit Orators. — The 
Manager of the Edinburgh Review Presides over an Anti-Slavery 
Meeting. — Sydney Smith Preaches a Sermon. — Lord Francis 
Jeffrey on Law Reform, the New York Revised Statutes, and 
Jerem}^ Bcnlhara, the Codifier — The Field of Cullodeu.— 
Charles Edward Stuart. — Clarkson's Opinion of the Four Stuarts 
and the Four Georges. — In Ireland. — O'Conuell on the Repeal 
of the Union. — John Randolph Said he was the First Orator in 
Europe.— Other Famous Men and Places. — Return to America. 
—Admitted to the Boston Bar 103 

CHAPTER XIIL 

The Law — Boston Bench and Bar.— Judges Story, Sprague, and 
Shaw. — Jeremiah Mason. — Daniel Webster. — Rufus Choate. — 
Their Triumphs in the Criminal Cases of Avery, the Knapps, 
and Tirrell.— Samuel Hoar. — He is Sent to South Carolina to 

A" 



X COXTENTP. 

Test the Constitutionality of Laws Imprisoning Free Colored 
Seamen. — Expelled from the State by Force. — Mr. Hoar's Fee 
as a Referee. — Choate before Juries. — Shaw on the Bench. — 
Choate's Stimulants, Hot Coffee and Hot Water.— Tirrell's Two 
Celebrated Trials for Murder and Arson. — Parker, the Prose- 
cuting Attorney.— Somnambulism the Defence. — George Head's 
Manufactured Testimony, and Rufus Choate's Marvellous Ora- 
tor}^ Twice Save Tirrell's Life Page 110 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Law. — Several jS'ovel Cases. — Libel Suit at Taunton. — The 
Vivid "Dream." — Criminal Prosecution for Libel at New Lon- 
don.— John T. Wait and Lafayette S. Foster for the State.— The 
Daniels's Case at Boston.— Charles G. Loring and Benjamin R. 
Curtis Counsel for the Defendant.— Choate for PlaintilTs. — A 
Patent Suit. — Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Hallett, and Horace 
E. Smith Counsel. — Joel Prentiss Bishop, the Law-writer. — John 
P. Hale as Lawyer and Senator. — Theodore Parker under In- 
dictment. — Hale his Counsel. — Parker on Fish and Phos- 
phorus , 123 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Law —Bench and Bar of the Empire State.— Kent, Spencer, 
and other Eminent Jurists — Four Great Law3-ers of Columbia 
County. — The Power of Elisha Williams over a Jury — Henry 
R. Storrs. — Lawyers and Trials at Rochester — Selleck Bough- 
ton. — Jesse liawley. the Land Surveyor, Foreshadowing the Erie 
Canal. — Charles M. Lee —General "Mad" Anthony Wayne's 
Storming of Stony Point Saves a Counterfeiter from the State 
Prison.— John Griffin, the Rough Judge of Allegheny County, 
Sits down on a Dandy Attorney — Alvan Stewart — Some 
Albany Lawyers. — The Famous Firm of Hill, Porter, & Cag- 
gar. — Quirk, Gammon, & Snap — Eseck Cowan's Rare Law 
Library.— Marcus T. Reynolds.- Samuel Stevens.— Daniel Cady, 
— Joshua A Spencer . 129 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Law. — The Corning and Burden Spike Case — Seward, 
Blatchford, and Stevens Counsel.— Reuben H Walworth, Ref 



fOXTEXTS. XI 

erec. — Jarnd^-ce cs. Jarmlyce. — Clients Erect Federal Buildings 
iit Buffalo and Oswego, and Sue the Government. — Speaker 
Grow, R. E. Fenton, and William Steele Holman Intervene. — 
Captain Cornelins A'anderbilt and the Fist Fight. — His Son, 
Cornelius Jeremiah, is Sued, and Blows his Brains out. — The 
Controversy over the Commodore's Will. — The Spencers. — 
John C. Spencer. — His Acute Legal Miud. — Interview with his 
Son, who was E.xecuted for Alleged IMutiny on Board The 
Somers. — Chief -justice Ambrose Spencer. — John C. Spencer 
Concocts the Canal Bill of 1851 Page 141 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Dr. Samuel B. Woodward and Senator Albert H. Tracy. — Close 
Resemblance to Washington and Jefferson. — Webster and the 
Conscience AVhigs in Fancuil Hall in 1846. — Crittenden on 
Clay and Webster. — Clay before the Supreme Court. — Mrs. 
James Madison. — John Sargeant. — Chief-justice Taney. — Clay 
in the Senate.— A Galaxy of Talents.— "Biddle and the Bank." 
— The Sub-Treasury Question. — Clay's Speech in New York. — 
His Personal ]Magnetism. — His Funeral Pageant. — A Cluster of 
Political Rivals. — George P. Barker. — Sauford E. Church. — 
Church iu the Xew York Assembly in 1842. — Hoffman, Dix, 
Seymour, and other Members. — Church makes Barker Attorney- 
General. — Anecdote of Church and James AY. Xye at the Buf- 
falo Convention in 1848 148 

CHAPTER XYIII. 

Democratic National Convention of 1844. — Van Buren, Polk, and 
Cass.— Polk Nominated for President. — Wright Nominated for 
Vice-President. — He Declines.— First Use of the j\Iorse Tele- 
graph. — Polk's Duplicity in Forming his Cabinet. — Marcy, Sec- 
retary' of War. — The Barnburners Angry. — Death of John Quin- 
cy Adams. — The Barnburner Revolt of 1847-48. — "The Assas- 
sins of Silas Wright." — List of Barnburners and Hunkers. — 
Utica Convention of 1848. — Young, Cambreling, and TiJden Pres- 
ent. — Cass and Taylor Rival Candidates for President. — Con- 
vention at Buffalo in 1848.— B. F. Butler's Speech. — "D—n his 
Turnips!" — Van Buren Nominated for President, and Charles 
Francis Adams for Vice-President. — The Barnburner Revolt 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Defeats Cass and Elects Taylor. — Reunion of the New York 
Democracy in 1849. — The Election and its Eesults. . . .Page 157 

m 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Author Elected to the New York Senate in 1849.— The Canal 
Bill. — Twelve Senators Resign to Defeat it. — Reelected in 1851. 
— The Bill Passes. — The Court of Appeals Pronounce it Uncon- 
stitutional. — The Author's Seat Contested. — Dinner at the Astor 
House. — Speech of Seward and another. — Thurlow Weed.— 
The Midnight Call.— The Contest Squelched.— AVeed's Hand in 
it. — ^lembers and Measures in the Senate. — Hamilton Fish 
Elected United States Senator. — James W. Bcekman Bolts Fish. 
—Notices of Hoffman, Loomis, Seymour, Dix, Van Buren, 
Marcy, and Dickinson. — John Van Buren and the Apple-woman; 
his Ill-health; the Water-cure Establishment; his Death at 
Sea ICG 

CHAPTER XX. 

Whig National Convention of 1852. — Webster's Sad Appearance. 
— General Scott Nominated for President. — Democratic National 
Convention of 1853. — Cass. Buchanan, Marcj', Douglas, and' 
Dickinson Aspirants. — An Unexpected Interview by the Vir- 
ginians. — New York Delegation in Private Conference. — Threats 
to Throw Seymour out of the Window. — Marcy and Dickinson 
Slaughter each other. — Pierce Nominated. — Dean Richmond's 
"Finality."— Pierce's Cabinet.— Dix Cheated, and Marcy Called. 
— Pierce Approves the Mi.«souri Compromise Repeal. — Rends 
the Democratic Party Asunder.— Republican Party Formed in 
1855-56.— Fremont Nominated for President. — James G. Blaine. 
— Notices of Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, John Jacob Astor, 
John Brown, and Martin Van Buren. — Brown Handles a Rifle, 
and Hits the Bull's-eye. — Van Buren Predicts the Overthrow of 
Slavery amid Convulsions 179 

CHAPTER XXI. 

William II. Seward as Senator.— Seward on Weed.— Seward Un- 
Ijending. — Seward and Judge Sackett. — Weed the "State 
Fifer."— Seward and Conkling.— Coukling Elected to Congress 
in 1858. — Seward on Greeley.— John Sherman, Candidate for 
Speaker.— Tom Corwin as an Orator.- The Jewish Rabbi Prays. 



CONTENTS. XI U 

— Ileury AViutcr Davis. — Penniugton Chosen Speaker.— Slidell's 
Bill to Puvcliase Cuba. — Wade and Toombs in Close Contact. — 
"Land for the Landless versus Niggers for the Kiggcrless." — 
Scene in the Senate in 1859 between Benjamin and Seward. — 
Seward Smokes Benjamin's Cigar. — Scene in the Senate in 1834 
between Clay and A^an Euren. — Van Euren Takes a Pinch of 
Clay's Snuff Page 193 

CHAPTER XXIL 

Turbulent Scenes in the House in 1859, 1880. — Grow Knocks 
Keitt Down. — Crawford Threatens Thad. Stevens. — Tribute to 
Stevens. — Stephen A. Douglas; his Ke-election to the Senate 
over Abraham Lincoln in 1859. — His Reception in the Senate. — 
Pro-Slavery Democrats Assail liim. — Seward Preparing for (he 
Chicago Convention of 18G0. — Deluded as to his Strength. — The 
Senators Opposed to him. — Corwin and Lincoln Speak in Xew 
England Early in 18G0. — New-Yorkers v>iio Oppose Seward at 
Chicago. — Lincoln Nominated. — Scene at Auburn Avhen the 
News Came. — Seward Embittered.— Crushed Presidential Aspi- 
rations of Seward, Greeley, Clay, and Webster. — Ira Harris 
Chosen Senator in 1861. — Defeat of Greeley and Evarts. — Paifus 
King's Chair in the Senate. — Its Distinguished Occupants. . 207 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Lincoln's Cabinet.- Chase Pushed in.— David Davis, Confidential 
Adviser of Lincoln.- Mrs. Lincoln " Sub-President."— Notices 
of Seward, Chase, Cameron, Bates, Blair, and Welles. —Bick- 
erings in the Cabinet. — Cha.se and -Seward Grapple. — Bray 
Dickinson and Marcus Curlius.— Down in Dixie in April, 1861. 
—Narrow Escape from Secessionists.— General Butler and his 
Troops.— Colonel Jones and his Regiment Going through Balti- 
more.— First Blood of the War.— Notice of Edwin M. Stanton, 
the War Secretary 320 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Mr. Lincoln and Dr. McPheeters. —Lincoln's Story. — Roscoe 
Conkling and Noah Davis Candidates for the Senate in 1867.— 
Conkling Elected.— Defeat of Morgan by Fenton for the Senate 
in 1869. —Escape of Marshall O. Roberts from the Lobby.— 
Democratic National Convention of 1868. — Seymour Favors 



XI r CONTENTS. 

Chase. — Vallandiglium's Course. — Sej'mour Nominated.— Grant 
Elected. — Seymour Urged to Accept the Senatorship in 1875; 
Refuses; Why. — Seward's Trip around the World.— Death of 
Seward in 1872. — R. B. Hayes Running for Governor of Ohio in 
1875. — Senator Thurman's Singular Prediction.— Conkliug and 
Piatt Resign from the Senate, and Lapham and Miller Succeed 
them in 1881.— Conklina's Success at the Bar Page 234 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Samuel J. Tilden; his Triumph over the Canal Ring and the 
Tweed Ring; his Sudden Death; his Note to the Author about 
"Random Recollections." — State Convention of 1874, v/hen he 
was Nominated for Governor. — The (N. Y.) Sun's Editorial 
Article.— Tilden Elected.— The Presidential Contest of 1876.— 
Tilden Dies of Heart Disease. — Ex-Governors Clinton, Wright, 
Marcy, and Fenton Fall by the same Malady under Peculiar 
Circumstances. — Notice of Robert L. Stanton, D.D. ; his Death 
in Mid-Ocean in May, 1885.— The Presbyterian General Assem- 
bly's Tribute to his Memorj" 244 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

American Journalism. — Its Rank as a Profession. — Earliest News- 
papers. — First Daily Paper. — Philadelphia Advertiser. — Boston 
Ccntinel. — National Gazette. — Controversy of Washington and 
Jefferson over Freneau. — Early Dailies in New York City. — 
Three Famous Editors. —Bitter Tone of the Press. — List of 
Distinguished Contributors. — Duels. — Early Journalism in New 
England. — Rude Methods of Collecting News and Circulating 
Papers. — Post-riders and Reporters. — The Deacon and the Mo- 
hawks.— Dailies in New York, Albany, and Rochester in 1820.— 
The Rochester Advertiser the First Daily Issued West of the 
Hudson and Delaware Rivers. — Henry O'Reilly. — Cincinnati 
Gazette and Charles Hammond. — Louisville Journal and George 
D. Prentice. — List of Celebrated Contributors in that Era.^ 
Later Editors. — Charles A. Dana. — Henry J. Raymond. — John 
G. Whittier.— George William Curtis 252 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

American Journalism. — Vice-President Wilson and Charles Francis 
Adams. — James and Erastus Brooks. — The New York Express. — 



CONTENTS. XV 

Lewis Tappan and David Hale. — The Journal of Commerce. — 
Early Modes of Getting News. — William Culleii Bryant and 
Yv'illiam 11. Leggett. — JS'ew York Evening Pod. — Courage of T/ie 
Post. — President Van Buren. — James Watson Webb. — The Cou- 
rier and Enquirer. — Famous Duels of Cilley, Graves, Webb, and 
Marshall. — Grccicy's Comments. — Benjamin Daj^ — T/ie {N. Y.) 
Sun. — James Gordon Bennett. — The JS'cio York Herald. — "It 
Does Move." — Brave Editors and Journals. — Joseph Tinker 
Buckingham and the Boston Courier. — Charles King and the 
NeiD York American. — Charles Hammond and the Cincinnati 
Gazette.^ James G. Birney. — Gamaliel H. Bailey. — Elijah Par- 
rish Lovejoy. — Cassius J^I. Clay Page 265 

CHAPTER XXVni. 

American Journalism. — Religious Newspapers. — Albany Journals 
and Editors: The Arrjus, Atlas, and Evening Journal; Croswell, 
Weed, Cassidy, Van Dyck, Shaw^, Dawson, Wilkeson. — Names 
of Thirty Persons whose Obituary Notices were Written by the 
Author in Various Journals. — Death of Gerrit Smith in Decem- 
ber, 1874. — Several State Conventions. — Tweed Exposes his 
Persecutors at Rochester in 1871 — Conkling and Fcnton Cross 
Swords at Syracuse in 1871. — Tildeu Nominated for Governor 
in 1874, Robinson in 1876, Cornell and John Kelly in 1879.— 
Speech-Making and Reporting. — Meeting at Providence in 1856. 
—The New York Times.— lsa,a.c Hill and the Concord Patriot. — 
John M. Niles and the Uetrtford Times. — Newspaper Corre- 
spondents Writing Speeches for Senators and Congressmen, and 
Reports for Committees, and Messages for Governors. — Press 
Club Receptions in 1885. — Extract from President Amos J. 
Cumming's Speech; he is Elected to Congress in November, 
1886. — The Great Newspaper District he Represents 278 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Conclusion. — Retrospect. — Extract from Thomas Moore's "Oft in 
the Stilly Night." 289 

Index of Names 291 



Rx\NDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Author's Birthplace. — Pachaug, Connecticut. — Jewett City. — 
The Author's Ancestry. — Thomas Stanton, the Indian Inter- 
preter, and William Brewster, the Pilgrim Father. — Indian 
Tribes in New London CountJ^ — Sachems Uncas, Sassacus, and 
Miantonomoh. — Extermination of the Pequods in 1637.— Bene- 
dict Arnold. — INIassacre at Groton Heights in 1781. — The Stan- 
tons who Fell there. — War of 181!2-181o. — Commodores Hardy, 
Decatur, and Perry. — Bombardment of Stonington. — Perry De- 
scribes his Victory on Lake Erie. — "Don't Give up the Ship." — 
Bitter Polilics*and Blue-Laws. 

I WAS born on June 27, 1805, on the margin of the 
Eiver Pachang, in the part of Preston which, in 1815, 
became Griswold, county of Xew London, Connecti- 
cut. I dwelt in the little hamlet of Pachaug till 1814, 
when my father removed to Jewett City, in the same 
township, a pretty village, situated just where the 
Pachaug empties its pellucid waters into the more 
stately Quinnebaug, on whose banks I lived till tlie 
spring of 1826. These two beautiful streams flow 
along together some five miles southwesterly, till the 
Shetucket, which had already captured the AVilliman- 
tic, comes pouring down from the north, and gives 
tham its own name, and leads them a rippling dance 
1 



2 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

to Norwich. Here the Yantic, having previously 
taken in small rivulets in the northwest, tumbles 
heedlessly over fantastic rocks, and joins the She- 
tucket. These five rivers and their accessories, after 
working their way towards the sea by turning the 
vvdieels of hundreds of factories, form the Thames in 
front of IS'orwich, and it marches off with its Indian 
tributaries in lordly style. After greeting Fort Gris- 
wold and Isew London, the Thames falls into Long 
Island Sound just below the Pequod House, and is 
seen no more. 

My father was Joseph Stanton. He was born in 
Washington County, E. I., on the shores of the At- 
lantic, whence he went in his early days to Preston, 
to begin a mercantile career. He had a distinguished 
ancestry. His father was an officer in the Eevolution- 
ary War, under his eldest brother, who was a young 
lieutenant in the army of General Wolfe that con- 
quered Canada from France in 1759. He was subse- 
quently a colonel in the Kevolution, and a senator 
and representative in Congress from Rhode Island for 
many years. Another of the ancestral line was an 
officer in the forces that w^rested Louisburg from the 
French in 1745, their stronghold in North America. 
From my father this line is traced directly upward to 
Thomas Stanton, vvdio was born in England in 1G15, 
and came to Kew England in 1635. He was learned 
for those da3^s ; became famous as a negotiator with 
the Indians, whose dialects he thoroughly mastered ; 
was a]ipoi»tecl by the Commissioners of the United 
Colonies Indian Interpreter - general for New Eng- 
land ; was a judg-e of the New London County Court, 



THE AUTHOR S ANX'ESTRY. 5 

and deputy for ten years to the General Court. He 
died in 1677. 

My mother was Susan Brewster, born in Preston. 
Her father was Simon Brewster, who died in Gris- 
wold, August 16, 1811, aged ninety years, three 
months, and fifteen days. He was a wealthy farmer 
and a magistrate. He was one of the defenders of 
Fort Griswold when it was stormed by Benedict Ar- 
nold. The line of the Brewsters goes straight up- 
ward from my mother to William Brewster, who was 
born at Scrooby, England, in 1560; was educated at 
Cambridge, entered the diplomatic service of Queen 
Elizabeth, was imprisoned at Boston a long time for 
non-conformity, and came to America by the way of 
Holland, in the Mayfioioer, and landed on Plymouth 
Rock, December 22, 1620. Here he ministered as the 
ecclesiastical head of the Pilgrim colony till his death, 
on x\pril 16, 1611, aged eighty-four years. He is a 
prominent figure in the picture of the embarkation of 
the Pilgrims, which hangs in the rotunda of the Cap- 
itol at Washington. 

Thus my paternal line goes back in this country 
two hundred and fifty years, and my maternal line 
two hundred and sixty-five years, which, I think, en- 
titles me to call myself a native American. 

My parents were married at Pachaug, on January 
25, 1803. 

My father was an enterprising country merchant, a 
shi])per of goods to and from the West Indies, and a 
woollen manufacturer. He was a political leader of 
the Jefferson school, thoroughly versed in military 
matters, courtly in manners, and of indomitable cour- 



4r RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

age. lie died at Kew York, in 1827. My mother 
was of the Puritan stock, intelligent, high-spirited, 
and pious. She died at Rochester, N. Y., in 1853. 

In early times three great tribes clustered in New 
London County, viz., the Pequods, the Mohicans, and 
a branch of the Narragansetts. In my youth quite a 
body of Mohicans dwelt near my home, wdiile a lib- 
eral sprinkling of Narragansetts and a bare trace of 
Pequods remained. 

In 1G3T the Pequods had a palisade fortress at 
Mystic, six miles from Pachaug. AYarlike and cruel, 
they had long been the scourge of Connecticut, and it 
was resolved to exterminate them. Their sachem was 
the bloody Sassacus. The hypocritical Uncas was 
the chief of the Mohicans. '' Uncas Rock " is still a 
famous landmark, overlooking the Yantic Falls, near 
ISTorwich. The chief of the JSTarragansetts w^as the 
generous Miantonomoh, one of the noblest and most 
unfortunate of his race. He Avas the nephew of the 
great Canonicus, the sachem who saved the Plymouth 
Pilgrims from destruction, and succored Roger Will- 
iams when he was banished from Massachusetts. 

In May, 1637, Captain John Mason, with ninety 
white soldiers, seventy Mohicans, under the lead of 
Uncas, and several hundred IsTarragansetts, command- 
ed by Miantonomoh, attacked the Pequods at dead 
of night in their stronghold at Mystic. The battle 
was desperate. It became a massacre. The assail- 
ants set fire to the birch-bark wigwams within the 
palisades. The swamp w^as soon a lake of flame, de- 
vouring men, squaws, and papooses, while those who 
attempted to flee were shot or pierced with arrows. 



MIANTONOMOH. BENEDICT AKNOLD. 5 

A few escaped, and never rested foot till they reached 
the Mohawk beyond Albany. A handful received 
quarter from the gentle Miantonomoh. It was the 
end of the once powerful Pequods. 

And now for the sad fate of Miantonomoh. In 
1043 he was attacked by Uncas. Their tribes had a 
lierce struggle on Sachem's Plain, just west of Nor- 
wich. Miantonomoh was defeated. Heartless white 
commissioners delivered him into the hands of Uncas, 
who took his victim to the field where the day had 
gone against him, and, near the " Uncas Eock," he 
cut from the shoulder of the unflinching Miantono- 
moh a slice of flesh, broiled it before his eyes, de- 
voured it, and said, "• It is the sweetest meat I ever 
ate." He then despatched the fallen sachem with his 
own tomahawk. In 1811, two hundred years after 
this barbarous deed, Connecticut rendered tardy hom- 
age to the intrepid Miantonomoh by erecting a mon- 
ument to his memory at the spot where he met his 
cruel death. 

In the last century a dirge was composed to the 
memory of Miantonomoh, and set to a plaintive mel- 
ody. In my childhood we had a negro slave whose 
voice was attuned to the sweetest cadence. Many a 
time did she lull me to slumber by singing this touch- 
ing lament. It sank deep into my breast, and mould- 
ed my advancing years. Before I reached manhood 
I resolved that I would become the champion of the 
oppressed colored races of my country. I have ke])t 
my vow. 

Benedict Arnold was born in ISTorwich, in 1710. 
In my 3'outh I often passed the house where he first 



6 EAKDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

saw the light, and once ventured timidly within. It 
cowered, ainong gloomy trees, away from the street, 
as if ashamed to face the sunshine. Arnold having 
failed to deliver West Point to the British, they fit- 
ted out an expedition, under his command, to Eastern 
Connecticut, in the fall of 1781. He burned 1:^gw 
London, and expressed malignant regrets that he could 
not lay his native town in ashes. He attacked Fort 
Griswold, on Groton Heights, and massacred a large 
portion of the garrison. Colonel William Ledyard, 
the intrepid commander, the brother of the famous 
traveller, was thrust through with his own sword 
after he had surrendered. The wounded were thrown 
into carts, which, by their own weight, plunged, with 
their writhing freight, furiously down the rocky de- 
clivity towards the Thames. A shapely monument 
now crowns the Heights. On marble tablets at its 
base are engraved the names of the one hundred and 
more who were slain on that bloody day. Among, 
them are four Stantons, my kindred. My Grandfa- 
ther Brewster participated in this deadly affray, but 
came out uninjured. I scarcely need add that the 
people of my county were taught to detest the cow- 
ardly caitiff Benedict Arnold. 

As New London was rather a fighting county, I 
will dispose of the war of 1 SI 2-1 81 5 before touching 
on a few topics that occurred earlier. In 1813 Commo- 
dore Stephen Decatur, the lion of our navy, under- 
took to go to sea with his fleet through the eastern 
end of Long Island Sound. Commodore Hardy, who 
had been the captain of Nelson's flag-ship at Trafal- 
gar, vrhere the great admiral fell, chased Decatur into 



COMMODORE HARDY. 7 

I^ew London with a superior force. Well do I remem- 
ber the prodigious sensation this caused in the rural 
towns. Ilardv blockaded Decatur's fleet more than 
a year, ravao;ino^ the coast by incursions on shore at 
safe points, frightening the women with the thunder 
of his guns, and keeping the militia of the county con- 
stantly on the alert. The division of my father was 
at the front nearly half the time. As became a stanch 
Madisonian, he was busy drilling the militia for home 
service and in raising yolunteers to go to Canada, 
and in composing songs adapted to the exigency. 
I recall scores of these doggerel verses. One gory 
ballad rang out : 

"Brave boj-s, don't bo afraid or skittish, 
But go and learn to fight the British." 

The aforesaid "boys" were told not to dread the 
Eed Coats, for — ■ 

"If j'ou'Il boil a lobster in a stew, 
He'll look as red and gay as thej^ do." 

On a sunny day in September, 1814, 1 went to Mrs. 
Ephraim Tucker's, a couple of miles from home, to 
play. Her husband, a lieutenant in my fathers di- 
vision, was at the seaside. Soon Ave heard the boom 
of Hardy's guns floating up from Stonington Point. 
Mrs. Tucker and I were seated on the doorsteps. An 
infant lay in her lap. Boom ! boom ! boom ! went the 
cannon for hours. Tears stole doAvn her ashen cheeks, 
and she shook like an aspen-leaf. I was nine years 
old. In my boyish way I tried to comfort her by 
telling her that my father would see to it that Mr. 
Tucker was not hurt. The attack at Stonington was 



fiasco. Hardy's firing was wild. 



8 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

In the Fremont campaign of 1856 I went to Nor- 
wich to address a mass-meeting. It occurred to me 
to run out to Pachaug, which I had not visited for a 
long period. I seated myself on the doorsteps of the 
Tucker house, now occupied by strangers. My eye 
rested on the cemetery which crowned the neighbor- 
ing hill, where lay in dread repose the generation I 
had known in my 3'outh. I mused deeph^ on events 
that had transpired in the forty-two years that had 
passed since I sat there before. Such thoughts and 
scenes rarely come to us except in the visions of the 
night. 

At the close of the war I visited relatives of the 
name of Hazard, at Westerly, R. I., near the old Stan- 
ton homestead. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, 
my father's cousin, was born in that county. One day 
the hero of the battle of Lake Erie suddenly dropped 
in at the Hazards'. His visit elicited a burst of enthu- 
siasm. His dashing manners and brilliant uniform 
filled me with visions of naval glory, and I Avanted 
him to take me to sea. He bore a striking resem- 
blance to the portraits and statues of him which I 
saw in riper years. 

I longed to see the ocean, and hear the beating of 
its great heart. My father, in company with the 
commodore, took me to Watch Hill, near the mouth 
of Pawkatuc Eiver. AYe arrived late in the evening. 
The sky was clear, the wind was brisk, the full moon 
was playing on the waves. I did not sleep a wink. 
All night I sat at the window and gazed at the white- 
caps of the billows, or lay on the bed listening to the 
roar of the bi"eakers. 



BITTER POLITICS. 9 

"Time writes no wrinlcles on thine azure brow; 
Sucli as creation's dawn beheld thou rollcst now." 

Ferry described to us the victory on Lake Erie; 
how Lawrence's dying words, "Don't give up the 
ship !" streamed from the fore, and how he Avent in an 
open boat from one of his disabled ships to another, 
the cannon-balls of the enemy whizzing around him, 
and there hoisted again the Lawrence motto, which 
waved defiantly till the English surrendered. 

The politics of this epoch was extremely bitter, I 
have witnessed three such eras — the Madisonian, in 
Connecticut ; the Anti - masonic, in Western ISTew 
York; and the persecution of the Abolitionists ev- 
erywhere; and I hardly know which was the most 
acrimonious. Leaving the two latter to take their 
turn, I will say a few words about the first. 

In Madisonian days schoolboys pulled hair and 
grown men drew^ swords, I took a hand in the first- 
mentioned pastime, understanding just about as much 
of the merits of the encounter as the mass of voters 
do nowadays in Presidential contests. As to deadly 
Aveapons, I saw my father, in 1812 or 1813, drive out 
of his grounds at Pachaug, sword in hand, a whole 
company of Federalist militia, who had come there to 
insult him. The lawsuit which followed cost him a 
round sum. Smaller fights were often ludicrous. The 
standing menace of one old Federalist, Avhen heavily 
loaded with cider-brandy, Avas, " I Avill not say that 
every Democrat is a horse-thief, but I do say that e\'- 
ery horse-thief is a Democrat," A sturdy Democrat, 
who had smelt poAvder at the seaside, taught me to 
stand on a chair and say, " The Hartford Convention 
1* 



10 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

was hatched in the purlieus of hell !" What purlieus 
meant, and what the Hartford Convention was, I did 
not know, and I presume my admiring auditors were 
in the same predicament. After much delay a new 
Democratic journal came to town. Its motto was 
from Shakespeare's Henry VIII., " Be just, and fear 
not." Shakespeare's name was appended. A warm 
Madisonian wiped his spectacles. His eyes fell on 
the motto. He read it through without a pause, " Be 
just and fear not Shakespeare.' Lifting his fist, he 
exclaimed, " I'll let 'em know I don't fear Shake- 
speare or any other Federalist." All through Con- 
necticut, in those turbulent years, inflamed partisans 
rent families, churches, and neighborhoods asunder. 
Vituperation furnished the staple of political discus- 
sion. 

The Congregationalists, or " the Standing Order," 
as they were called, had long been the established 
(Church of Connecticut. In 1818 portions of the Fed- 
eralists of other denominations united with the Demo- 
crats, and defeated the Federal party. The last trace 
of the Blue Law dynasty soon disappeared. It was 
one of the bitterest political conflicts I ever saw. An 
amendment of the constitution finally placed all sects 
on a basis of political equality. 



CHAPTEE II. 

Puritan "Meeting-house" at Pachaug.— Freezing as a Means of 
Grace. — Musical Instruments and Timepieces. — The Clerg3\ — 
Doctors Hart, Bellamy, Hopkins, and Lorenzo Dow. — Tlie Bur- 
rougbses. — Tlie Westminster Catechism. — Connecticut Calvin- 
ism vs. Ehode Island Liberalism. — The Deacon's Horse-race ou 
Sunday. — Schools, Teachers, and Books. — Nathan Daboll, the 
Arithmetician.— George D. Prentice, Poet, Wrestler, and Found- 
er of the Louisville Journal. — Celebration on July 4, 1824, at 
Jewett City. — Toast to Henry Clay. — La Fayette at Jewett City 
in 1825. 

Our Congregational lioirse of worship stood on a 
lawn, surronnded by oaks, on the banks of the Pa- 
chang. It was constructed of wood, according to the 
severest order of Puritan architecture — large, square, 
Avith two stories of glaring windows on four sides, 
the pulpit a perch, the galleries ample, the pews box- 
es, except the negro-pew, Avhich was a pen near the 
ceiling. Opposite the front entrance was the whip- 
ping-post, near by were the stocks, while on a distant 
hill grinned the skeleton of a gallows. In my child- 
hood I saw a WTetch scourged at the post, a drunkard 
writhing in the stocks, and a negro executed on the 
gallows. These exhibitions have sufficed me for a 
lifetime. 

For many years we had no fires in the church in 
the winter, and we worshipped God and shivered 
over the Westminster Catechism till the congregation 



12 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

came to the conclusion that freezing was not a means 
of grace, and two huge stoves were brought in. We 
had fine singing, but no musical instrument except 
the chorister's pitchpipe. Ere I left Griswold I saw 
the gallery desecrated by a bass-viol. We had no 
clock wherewith to time the sermon, though the min- 
ister liad an hour-glass in the pulpit. One of the 
early clergymen of Pachaug used to pray fifty or 
sixty minutes by the glass, the audience all standing. 
Now I am on timepieces, I will add that I doubt if, 
when I was born, there were five gold watches in the 
county. How changed ! In this progressive age ev- 
erv boy claims one as soon as he has learned to swear. 
Silver Swiss watches were common ; the poor resorted 
to sun-dials, and the affluent had eight -day brass 
clocks in their parlors, counting the passing hours 
with owl-like gravity. The pitchpipe reminds me 
that I recollect seeing only two pianos in my county, 
though harps and harpsichords were not infrequent, 
and there was a surfeit of drums, fifes, fiddles, bugles, 
and trumpets, as befitted a martial ])eople. 

There was rare stability in the ecclesiastical afi'airs 
of Pachaug. Three Congregational ministers were 
settled there in unbroken succession from 1720 to 
1880, viz., Ilezekiah Lord, Levi Hart, and Horatio 
A7aldo. Dr. Hart was the son-in-law of the famous 
Dr. Joseph Bellamy, the rival of Jonathan Edwards, 
and he was the friend of the celebrated Dr. Samuel 
Hopkins, the founder of the Hopkinsian sect. Drs. 
Bellamy and Hopkins often preached in Pachaug. 
Dr. Hart died in October, 1808, an event I remember 
as distinctly as if it had happened yesterday. His 



WHITEFIELD. — DOW. — BUEKOTTGHS. 13 

venerable form, arrayed in the clerical dress of the 
Kevolution, rises before me as I write this line. This 
fact is perhaps worthy of notice as showing that octo- 
genarians may recall things that occurred when they 
were three years old. 

A few words about otlier clerical celebrities. The 
echo of "WhiteiiekVs fame lingered among my native 
hills. My grandmother told me of the mellow ac- 
cents of his voice, now soft as a flute, anon swell- 
ing like a bugle ; of his dramatic gestures and thrill- 
ing appeals, which swa3"ed great audiences as if swept 
by the wings of the tempest, and how he rode at full 
gallop from town to town to meet engagements, the 
skirts of his silk o-own streamino; behind on the wind. 
I have bent reverently over the sepulchre of the peer- 
less preacher in Kewburyport. The Baptists were 
occasionally represented in our town by their tAvo 
great lights, the Eev. Silas and Koswell Burroughs, 
of Stonington, kinsmen of the families of that name 
who were subsequently conspicuous in the politics of 
"Western 'New York. The strangest and widest known 
of all was Lorenzo Dow, a Methodist, Avho had trav- 
elled the v.^orld over, and lived near Griswold, where 
he often preached and drew crowds. He looked like 
Joe Jefferson, in '' Eip Van Winkle." His sermons 
were sharply anti-Calvinistic, and his illustrations the 
quaintest imaginable, while his manners overstepped 
all ordinary bounds. When discoursing he bestrode 
the pulpit, sat on the stairs, or walked through the 
aisles. One characteristic anecdote must suffice. It 
was in the height of the summer solstice. An aged 
matron occupied a conspicuous seat. She wore a tall 



14 RANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

cap with a wide border, which rose and fell under the 
impulse of a broad fan in a style so odd that the boys 
kept tittering. Mr. Dow endured it for a while, and 
then, pausing in his sermon and pointing his linger at 
the venerable lady, exclaimed, " Oh, God, send an ar- 
row of conviction from heaven straight through that 
old woman's cap into her heart !" The fan was fold- 
ed, the boys subsided, and the discourse went on. 

My native town was only one remove from Ehode 
Island. We boasted of our supposed superiority in 
knowledge and virtue over the neighboring common- 
wealth. If we saw a tramp, or a rickety wagon 
drawn by a spavined horse, passing through Gris- 
wold, we spoke of them as from what we sneeringly 
called "t'other state," wliere the people were Bap- 
tists and Methodists, and took walks on Sunday in- 
stead of whipping their cider-barrels for working on 
that day. Our few inhabitants who dared to use a 
stronger term than " darnation " would talk of " ban- 
isliing a bad man off the face of the earth into the 
State of Khode Island." AVe were taught to look 
Avith shivering dread at the boys whose parents came 
from that state to work in our factories, because of 
their ignorance of the Westminster Catechism. One 
of them was lured into the Pachaug school. Tha 
master was examining the pupils in the Catechism. 
Following the text, he asked the heathen from " t'oth- 
er state " if there were more gods than one. The bar- 
barian petrified us with the flippant answer. " I don't 
know how many 3'ou've got up here in Connecticut ; 
we ha'int got none down in Ehode Island." 

The liberals of the land of Roger Williams would 



THE deacon's SUNDAY HOESE-KACE. 15 

sometimes play pranks on the Puritans along the Pa- 
chaug and Quinnebaug rivers. Our Sabbatarian laws 
were extremely strict. The deacons, tithing-men, 
and other officials in Church and State, could arrest 
any person found riding on Sunday, unless he were 
going to '' meeting " or for a physician. A dashing 
Rhode-Islander, Avho owned a spirited gelding, had a 
manufacturing job in Jewett City. The road to his 
Rhode Island home ran past the Pachaug church. 
One Sunday he started from Jewett City for his pa- 
ternal abode on his gay horse. Ere he reached Pa- 
chaug one of the deacons mounted his mare and pur- 
sued him, crying, " Stop ! stop !" They came tearing 
at full gallop in among the oak-trees which surround- 
ed the church just as the congregation was gathering 
on the broad green sward. The deacon chased the 
Rhode-Islander round and round the venerable edi- 
fice, each lashing his steed with a rawhide, the deacon 
shouting, " Stop your horse ! you are breaking the 
Sabbath!" the Rhode - Islander responding, "I have 
told you a dozen times that I will not trade horses 
with you on a Sunday, and you ought to be ashamed 
to keep on violating the Sabbath by proposing it." 
The crowd on the green viewed the spectacle with 
amazement. The deacon's mare was all of a foam, 
and he abandoned the pursuit. He was fond of horses, 
and something of a jockey, and many of the congre- 
gation long believed that on that Sunday he was urg- 
ino; a horse-trade with the Rhode-Islander. 

I have spoken of the oaks that surrounded the Pa- 
chaug church. I was aware that the large things of 
youth look small in riper years. I had seen many 



16 RANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

large oaks in this country and Europe, when, in 1868, 
being near Pachaug, I thought I would run over and 
measure those oaks, which I had not seen in a long 
while, but had never been able to get wholly out of 
my head. Alas ! the biggest had sunk under the 
vv'eight of age, and the next biggest had succumbed 
to an autumn gale. I measured the two largest that 
remained. The trunk of the smallest of these aver- 
aged sixteen feet in circumference, and from tip to 
tip of its longest limbs it measured through the body 
one hundred and ten feet. The trunk of the largest 
averaged eio^hteen and a half feet in circumference, 
and from tip to tip of its longest limbs it measured 
through the body one hundred and twenty feet. 
These were not " the babes of the woods." Nobody 
knew anything of the age of these patriarchs. 

Well do I remember the little red schoolhouse in 
which I learned the A B C's. The sun glared upon it 
in summer, and the snow blockaded it in winter. Th(3 
great fireplace blazed with hickory logs from Novembei* 
to April. Consequently, the youngsters who sat on the 
low, hard benches near the hearth were roasted, while 
the big boys and girls, who occupied the back bench- 
es, near the rattling windows, shivered with cold. 
Our ordinary text-books were "AVebster's Spelling- 
book," " Daboirs Arithmetic," " Murray's Grammar," 
'^Morse's Geography," "Flint's Surveying," "Tyt- 
lers History," " Belknap's Biogra])hies," the "• Amer- 
can Preceptor," and the never-to-be-forgotten " West- 
minster Catechism." We had no maps, atlases, black- 
boards, or any of the modern aids and appliances for 
the acquisition of knowledge. We lost less by this 



XATilAN DABOLL. GEOKGE D. PHEJS'TICE. 17 

than many imagine. Learning is like gold. ThosG 
who get it the hardest generally keep it, while from 
those to whom it comes without the asking it is lia- 
ble to slip away. The most of what I obtained in the 
red schoolhouse at Pachaug and the rickety building 
at Jewett City in youthful days stays with me yet. 
Aside from school-books, Bibles, psalm-books, and the 
professional books of the clergy, the physicians, and 
our one lawyer, I presume all the volumes in this 
rather wealthy town did not exceed one hundred and 
fifty. T vrent through the whole of them more than 
once. 

ISTathan Daboll, the arithmetician, was a native of 
our county. Of course, we thought he was the great- 
est mathematician in the world. One day we heard he 
was about to pass the red schoolhouse. We were mar- 
shalled out to greet him, the pupils all in a row, and 
the master at the head of the line. Mr. Daboll ap- 
proached on a venerable gray horse, his white beard 
touching the pommel of the saddle. "We gave him a 
low bow ; he lifted his aged hat, smiled benignly, and 
rode oil. He had taught school in Griswold. 

One of my teachers was George D. Prentice, the 
poet, vrho was born within a stone's -throw of me. 
He is better known as the witty editor of the Louis- 
ville Journal, now the Courier- Journal, managed by 
Henry Watterson. Many were the literaiy favors I 
received from Prentice. He was a graduate of Brown, 
an admirable instructor, a ripe scholar, had a wonder- 
ful memory, and -was a skilful wrestler I have seen 
him, on a wager, read two large pages in a strange 
book twice through, and then repeat them without a 



18 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

miss. The champion wrestler of the county met 
Prentice casually in the bar-room of the Jewett City 
hotel. The champion was a stalwart fellow, tall, ath- 
letic, and weighed fifty per cent, more than Prentice. 
The floor was hard, and the ceiling vras high. They 
clinched. The struggle was desperate. The cham- 
pion went under rather lightly. He insisted upon 
another hold. No sooner were they ready than Pren- 
tice threw the champion clear over his shoulders, 
bringing him to the floor with a thud that made the 
house jar, and beating all the breath out of his body. 

Prentice studied law at Griswold. He wore a pis- 
tol, but had no use for it there. When he w^ent to 
Louisville, and took up the editorial pen, the ])istol 
came into play. 

When I dwelt at Cincinnati, in 1832-1835, the great 
daily of the Southwest was the Journal, founded in 
1830, by Prentice, and conducted by him till his death, 
in 1870. It was the leading Whig organ in the West- 
ern States during the existence of that party. As 
an editor he was full of wit and fire, and his para- 
graphs exploded like nitro-gl3"cerine, he fighting out 
his quarrels with pen or pistol, as the case required. 
Long ago I wrote a little for Prentice's Journal. 
The last time I savr Prentice was in 1859, at ]N!^ew 
York, where he had come to publish a volume of his 
witty sayings. I noticed his arrival at the Astor. 
Though we had not met for a third of a century, he 
instantly recognized me when I called him by name. 
Years only added to the zest with Avhich we talked of 
the events of youth. 

In passing through Jewett City, the industrious 



HENRY CLAY. LA FAYETTE. 19 

Pachaug Elver propelled the wheels of a dozen mills. 
Among them was a woollen factory, erected, at the 
opening of the century, by a Mr. Schofield, an Eng- 
lishman, who brought his machinery from beyond the 
Atlantic. It was said that threats were made to kill 
him, in order to crush this then scarcely-born species 
of industry. England has since learned to accomplish 
the same end by prostrating the protective tariffs of 
her rivals. My father was, ultimately, the partner of 
Schofield. At the same time he manufactured ma- 
chinery and owned three country stores. The years 
I spent in these stores and factories gave me a close 
acquaintance with merchandise and machinery. The 
latter served me an excellent purpose in later times, 
when I became a patent-lawyer, and tried patent-suits 
in the courts. 

We always celebrated the Fourth of July in Jewett 
City. We had our dinner, read the Declaration of In- 
pendence, drank our lemon-punch, gave the thirteen 
regular toasts, and then called for volunteers ; that is 
to say, the full-grown men did this. I was brought 
up to admire Henry Clay. In 1824 Clay, Crawford, 
Adams, and Jackson were running for the presidency. 
The Fourth of July brought its celebration. Captain 
Charles Fanning, my great -uncle, Avho had fought 
through the Ke volution, was to preside at the dinner. 
Clad in the garb of the previous century, and crowned 
with a flowing wig, Captain Fanning sat at the head 
of the table, gave the regular toasts, and asked for 
volunteers. I sprang to my feet, delivered a speech 
about an inch long, and gave, "■ Henry Clay : the elo- 
quent champion of domestic manufactures and internal 



20 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

improvements." My prim old uncle stared at me 
with amazement. Tlie Clay men clinked their glass- 
es, pounded the table, and I sat down covered with con- 
fusion and applause. This was the first of the six- 
teen Presidential campaigns in which I have delivered 
speeches ; sometimes not a few. 

In 1825 General L^i Faj^ette, in his last visit to this 
country, passed tlirough Jewett City on his way from 
Xew York to Boston. We had short notice of his 
coming. The whole village turned out to greet him. 
Captain Fanning, who had fought under him at Mon- 
mouth, and had taken a hasty breakfast Avitli him 
just as the battle was commencing, did the honors of 
the present occasion. La Fayette and Fanning had 
not met in nearly forty-five years, and the latter was 
wondering if the marquis would recognize him. The 
coach drove up. It was late in the evening. The 
marquis alighted, with his son and other companions, 
and entered the hotel. Captain Fanning stood in the 
parlor without moving. La Fayette gazed intentl}^ at 
him for a moment, then walked straight up to him, 
and, throwing his arms around him, French fashion, 
exclaimed, " Captain Fanning ! God bless you, my old 
comrade !" 



CHAPTER III. 

Journey to Rochester in April, 182G.— New York City bad ISO.OCO 
Souls. -- Tammany Hall. — The Bucktails.— The City Hall.— 
Albany's Population, 15,000. —The Old Capitol. — Legislative 
Leaders: Younjr, Root, Frank Granger, Colden, Livingston, 
Silas Wright, Tallmadge. — Governor De Witt Clinton, the 
Magnificent.— The Erie Canal just Completed.— Utica.— Syra- 
cuse. — Rochester in 1826. — Anti-Masonic Excitement. — Thurlow 
Weed's Dingy Newspaper, Shabby Dress, and Empty Pocket. — 
Henry O'Reilly Issues at Rochester, in 1826, the First Daily 
Journal West of the Hudson and Delaware Rivers.— Edmund 
Kean, the Tragedian, Performs in the "L-on Chest" at Roches- 
ter.— Sam Patch Twice Leaps the Genesee Falls and is Drowned. 
— Gerrit Smith and Fanny Wright Speak at Rochester.— Samuel 
Wilkeson Constructs the Harbor at Eullalo. 

Eaely in April, 1826, 1 started for the " Far West," 
even to the Genesee country, which seemed then far- 
ther off than Alaska does now. My route was by 
Long Island Sound, the Hudson Eiver, and Erie Canal, 
which had been completed the October previous. I 
arrived at Xew York in the morning. It tlien con- 
tained a population of one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand. I rushed into Broadway. All the world seemed 
to be there. I stared at the tall houses, and everybody 
I didn't run into ran into me. I was specially attract- 
ed by the omnibuses, as I have seen to be the case 
with other immigrants in later years. They were 
bound for such far-off villages as Greenwich and Chel- 
sea, which, I subsequently learned, were locatetl, one 



22 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

near the foot of Tenth Street, and the other at Eigh- 
teenth Street, on the west side. My father had taken 
Major Mordecai M. Noah's newspaper, and I knew 
about Taniniany Hall and the Bucktails. I sought 
the famous building. I stood before it. I remem- 
bered the couplet : 

"There's a barrel of porter iu Tammany Hall, 
And the Bucktails are swigging it all the day long." 

I confronted the City Hall. To my youthful eye 
it seemed an architectural marvel. Well, to this dav 
it is one of the most uniqiie specimens of its order in 
the country. 

I reached Albany in the forenoon. Its population 
was fifteen thousand. I repaired to the Capitol. It 
filled me with wonder. I thought it equal to the ed- 
ifice which crowned Capitoline Hill in ancient Eome. 
I Avas bewildered Avhen I learned that it cost $110,000. 
The Tweed style of doing this sort of a thing had not 
then been discovered. There it stood — its massive 
walls; its fluted columns; its towering dome, sur- 
mounted by tlie statue of Justice bearing aloft the 
scales. I entered tlie Assembly Chamber, and lis- 
tened to an angry debate between Samuel Young, 
Erastus Ivoot, and Francis Granger, then among the 
renowned politicians of New York. Granger was 
the attraction of the ladies' gallery. Dressed in a 
bottle-green coat with gilt buttons and brilhant ap- 
purtenances, he was ft model of grace and beauty. I 
went into the Senate Chamber, and heard a discussion 
about the canals by Cadwallader D. Colden, Peter R. 
Livingston, and Silas Wright. Lieutenant-governor 



DE WITT CLINTON. THE ERIE CANAL. 23 

James Tallmadge, who had won distinction in Con- 
gress in the Missouri controversy, filled the chair. 
These things and these men looked large to me then. 
Years afterwards, when a member of the same body, 
and standing behind the scenes, they dAvindled in 
magnitude. 

I saw the governor in the Executive Chamber. De 
Witt Clinton was one of the most magnificent men 
that ever stood on the soil of JSTew York. He Avas 
then in the height of his grandeur and glory. The 
Erie Canal, his greatest achievement, had been fin- 
ished the previous fall, and he had come from Buffalo 
to Albany, and thence to Xew York, in the canal- 
boat Seneca Chief, through an unbroken succession 
of cheers and the booming of cannon. Amid many 
imposing ceremonies, a barrel of w^ater brought from 
Buffalo to ^Q\Y York was emptied into its harbor, and 
then another barrel was carried from I^ew York to 
Buffalo, and poured into its harbor, and thus was 
Lake Erie w^edded to the Atlantic Ocean. Mr. Clin- 
ton then ranked among the foremost statesmen in the 
nation. 

The canal not being wholly free of ice, I Avent by 
stage-coach to Utica. The tributaries of the Mohawk 
River not having been then denuded of their protect- 
ing forests, its banks Avere full. On arriving at Utica 
I could say Avith Tom Moore, 

"From rise of riorn to set of sun, 
I've seen the miglity Mohawk run." 

Utica Avas a gem of a city, Avith four thousand five 
hundred souls. There I took the packet-boat for 



2i RANDOM RKCOLLECTIONS. 

Rochester. We passed throiigli Syracuse in a driz- 
zling rain. It contained about two tliousand five 
hundred people, and was just scrambling out of its 
salt-pits, covered with mud and slime. By-the-by, I 
supposed that the Erie Canal was a pellucid stream 
like my own Pachaug. I found it the muddiest ditch 
I ever saw. We shot into Rochester through the 
aqueduct across the Genesee as the sun w^as peeping 
over the shoulders of the hills in Brighton. The aque- 
duct seemed to me equal to those famous structures 
which supplied old Rome with water. 

In April, 1826, Rochester was a little tow^n of three 
thousand five hundred inhabitants, clinoinff to both 
banks of the Genesee River. In the centre of the vil- 
lage roared the Falls, one hundred feet high. It al- 
ready showed premonitory sjnnptoms of its coming 
beauty and greatness. It was growing with marvel- 
lous rapidity. Stumps of trees were standing in its 
principal streets, and the w^oodman's axe "was hewing 
doAvn the forest to make room for other streets. 

In September, 182G, AVilliam Morgan was abducted 
from Canandaigua, carried through Rochester, and in- 
carcerated in Fort Niagara, which had been abandoned 
by the government. Then broke out the Anti-ma- 
sonic excitement, w^hicli convulsed Western New 
York for many years. These bitter controversies 
tore society all in pieces. Their history has been 
written again and again, and I shall not repeat a line 
of it, although I was a witness of the whole of it. 
The statement of Thurlow Weed, published since liis 
death, in regard to the fate of Morgan, is, no doubt, 
substantially true. I knew all the principal charac- 



THUELOW MEED IN 1836. 25 

ters mentioned in that statement. I have seen many 
sharp political and social contests in my day, but, 
viewed in some aspects, I think the Anti-masonic 
feuds excelled them all. 

When I came to Kochester, in April, 1826, Mr. 
Weed was the editor of a dingy weekly Clintonian 
newspaper, called the Monroe Telegrcqili. He had 
been a member of the Assembly the year before. He 
was one of the poorest and worst - dressed men in 
Eochester. He dwelt in a cheap house, in an obscure 
part of the village. In the western counties of the 
state, however, he w^as then as great a power in poli- 
tics, perhaps, as at any subsequent period of his life. 
He w^as often sent by his associates on missions of 
grave importance into various states. He sometimes 
had to borrow clothes to give him an appearance be- 
fitting his talents. I vras standing one day in the 
street with Mr. Weed and Frederick Whittlesey, wiio 
was afterwards Vice chancellor and Judge of the Old 
Supreme Court, when up came Weed's little son, and 
said, " Father, mother w^ants a shilling to buy some 
bread." Weed put on a queer look, felt in his pock- 
ets, and remarked, " That is a home appeal, but I'll 
be hanged if I've got the shilling." Whittlesey drew 
out a silver dollar, gave it to the boy, and said, '' Take 
that home to your mother." He seized the glittering 
prize, and ran off like a deer. I don't mention these 
things to the discredit of Mr. Weed, but to his honor. 
It was rare that a man w^ho was so poor should be so 
great. Spattered with ink, and with bare arms, he 
pulled at the old hand -press of the Telegrapk, and 
at a rickety table that would have been dear at fifty 



26 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

cents he wrote those sparkhng paragraphs which, in 
later years, made the Albany Evening Journal famous. 

In the fall of 1826 Luther Tucker & Co. estab- 
lished in Rochester the earliest daily journal issued 
between the Hudson and Delaware rivers and the 
Pacific Ocean. It was entitled the Rochester Daily 
Advertiser, and was edited in a spirited manner by 
Henry O'Eeilly. It continues to the present day as 
the Advertiser and Union. Soon after it was start- 
ed the Advertiser became a Democratic exponent, and 
for many months a good share of Weed's and O'Reil- 
ly's time seemed to be devoted to firing red-hot shot 
at each other. Having been inducted into the mvs- 
tery of newspaper scribbling about two years before 
by my townsman, George D. Prentice, I took a hand 
occasionally in those pen-and-ink contests. 

We had a little theatre at Rochester, managed by 
an Englishman named Williams, who had played sub- 
ordinate parts to Edmund Kean in London. Kean 
stopped at Rochester, with one or two companions, 
on his way to Niagara Falls for rest. Williams was 
always in debt, and generally in the hands of the 
sheriff. He saw Kean at the hotel, and implored 
him to play one night and help him out of difficulty. 
Please remember this was the original Kean, the real 
Kean, the great Kean ; not the feeble imitation which 
appeared in his son, Charles Kean. The peerless act- 
or yielded to the importunities of AVilliams. Ample 
time for preparation was given ; the price of seats 
was put far above the current rates in New York ; 
the play was " The Iron Chest," Kean, of course, tak- 
irig the part of Sir Edward Mortimer. The elite of 



EDMUND KEAN. — SAM rATCII. 27 

Monroe and one or two adjoining counties crowded 
the house in every part. The affair "was a grand suc- 
cess. At the close of the performance we got a speech 
out of Kean, and WiUiams got out of the hands of 
the sheriff. 

Sam Patch, the famous jumper and diver, came to 
Eochester in November, 1829, and proposed to leap 
from the Falls in the heart of the village. On the 
day fixed Sam appeared. The banlvs of the river, as 
far as the eye could reach, were lined with spectators. 
He was dressed in a suit of white, and I will state, 
for the benefit of other fools of the same class, that, 
before he leaped, he placed his hands firmly on his 
loins, then sprang from the shelving rock, and went 
down straight as an arroAV. He came up feet fore- 
most, and swam ashore amid the shouts of thousands. 
A few days later he proposed to leap again. Ho 
erected a scaffold twenty-five feet high on the brink 
of the Falls, making the descent one hundred and 
twenty-five feet. On the day named another im- 
mense throng assembled. Mr. Thurlow AVeed and I 
happened to meet at the foot of the scaffold. Patch 
came, dressed as before, and apparentl}'^ under the in- 
fluence of liquor. As he ascended the scaffold Weed 
left, but I remained. He made a ridiculous speech, 
and then jumped. As he went down his arms were 
all in a whirl, and he struck the water with a stun- 
ning s])lash. The crowd waited for hours. lie did 
not rise. The next spring the mangled remains of 
the poor w^retch w^ere found at the foot of the Falls 
at Carthage, four miles below Eochester. 

Gerrit Smith, at Eochester, in 1827 or 1828, deliv- 



28 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

ered a Colonization address in the Court-house. Then 
thirty 3^ears of age, in glowing health, and with a 
voice that was pronounced superior in melody to 
Henry Clay's, he was a noble specimen of manly dig- 
nity and beauty. He was master of a theme that 
attracted the attention of philanthropists and states- 
men. It was in that year, I believe, that, in the same 
building, I heard a speech from a very different ora- 
tor, on quite a dissimilar subject. This was the fa- 
mous Fanny Wright, who advocated views concern- 
ing woman w^hich were then novel, but have since 
become familiar. She spoke with grace and ability, 
but was hardly as beautiful as the engraving in vol. i. 
of " The Historv of Woman Suffrage." 

When I passed through Albany in 1826 I saw in 
the Senate Samuel Wilkeson, of Buffalo, one of the 
most remarkable of the pioneers that built up west- 
ern New York. Buffalo then contained only four 
thousand five hundred people, but was rapidly in- 
creasing in population, trade, and wealtli. Judge 
AVilkeson, eagle-eyed and lion-hearted, possessed keen 
sagacity and indomitable enterprise, and, though not 
versed in the lore of the schools, he had what no 
amount of learning can supply — an original, creative 
genius. Pie was the founder of the commercial pros- 
perity of Buffalo. He constructed its harbor, and 
thus made it the terminus of the Erie Canal and the 
outlet of the trade of the upper lakes. The city rec- 
ognizes its obligations to the man to whom it is so 
largely indebted for its early growth and present 
greatness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Horatio Seymour when a Cadet ; his Father, Henry Sej'mour. 
— The "Immortal Seventeen" Senators. — Marcy, Flagg, 
Bouck in 1826-1827.— Death of De Witt Clinton in 1828; Mar- 
tin Van Buren and Benjamin F. Butler's Eulogiums on Him; 
their Drift and Purpose. — Van Buren at Kochester in 1828; 
His Variegated Dress. — Eoscoe Conkling's Style. — Presidential 
Struggle between Adams and Jackson in 1828. — Van Buren 
Runs for Governor to Help Jackson, and is Chosen. — Smith 
Thompson and Solomon South wick also Candidates. — Jackson 
Elected President. — Van Buren Appointed Secretary of State.— 
Young Men's State Convention at Utica in 1828; the First ever 
Held in the Union; William H. Seward Presides; his Unexpected 
and Embarrassing jSTomination for Congress in 1828; he Declines 
to Run. 

I SAW Horatio Seymour when he was quite young. 
Captain Alden Partridge, who had been professor and 
superintendent at West Point, established, in 1820, a 
private military school in Vermont, whence he re- 
moved it to Middletown, Conn. One summer he 
made a tour of the latter state with his cadets. They 
visited Jewett City, where I was. Horatio Sejanour 
was one of them. They were a bright bevy of bloom- 
ing boys, carrying little guns, and dressed in gray 
jackets, white trousers, and jaunty caps, and they ma- 
na3u^'Ted with the pride and precision of veterans. A 
Eevolutionary officer, in whose house I felt at home, 
gave them a reception, and I made bold to shake 
hands with all of them. Many years later, when I 



30 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

met Mr. Seymour in the Assembly at Albany, he 
spoke of his tour to Jewett City as a cadet. We ex- 
changed smiles over our early acquaintance, though 
probabl}" neither of us had heard of the existence of 
the other since the casual handshake on the banks 
of the Quinnebaug River. 

I met Henry Seymour, the father of Horatio, sev- 
eral times at Rochester in 1826 and 1827. He was a 
canal commissioner from 1819 to 1832, and for six 
years bore an active share in the construction of 
the Erie Canal. In 1826 and 1827 I was a clerk in 
the canal office at Rochester, whose chief was John 
Bowman, one of the so-called "Immortal Seventeen" 
Senators (the Clintonians denounced them as the " In- 
famous Seventeen") that defeated the bill for giving 
to the people the right of choosing presidential elect- 
ors. Bowman's office was the rendezvous of famous 
Democratic politicians. I recall the visits of Comp- 
troller Marcy, Secretary of State Flagg, Senators Mal- 
lory and lieman J. Redfield, two of the " Seventeen," 
and AV^illiam C. Bouck and Henry Seymour, Canal 
Commissioners. My young ears were wide open, and 
I learned something about New York and national 
politics which I have not yet forgotten. Mr. Sey- 
mour had been in the State Senate before he was 
commissioner. He was the coadjutor — indeed, he 
was a member of the Albany Regency, that so long 
bore sway in the Democratic party. It Avill be read- 
ily believed that the unflinching politics of the son, 
and his devotion to the canal system of l^ew York, 
were hereditary gifts from the father. In figure and 
face the late governor, when in his prime, bore a strik- 



DEATH OF DE WITT CLINTON. 81 

ing resemblance to his sire, but in manners and social 
intercourse he was far more spirited and entertaining. 

In February, 1828, De Witt Clinton died, without 
a moment's w^arning, at Albany. The profound im- 
pression which his decease produced in 'New York has 
never been equalled by any similar event. The con- 
test for the Presidency between John Quincy Adams 
and Andrew Jackson had just opened. Clinton had 
declared in favor of Jackson, and was bringing over 
to his standard as rapidly as possible his great follow- 
ing. The personal party which Clinton had built up 
was never surpassed in the state. Martin Yan Buren, 
Senator in Congress, head of the Albany Eegency, 
and an opponent of Clinton, was the Jackson leader 
in Isew York. It was understood that Jackson's par- 
tialities for Clinton w^ere so strong that, in case of his 
election, he would have made him Secretary of State, 
and Yan Buren would have had to wait. At a meet- 
ing of the ISTew York delegation in Congress, held at 
Washington, in regard to the death of Clinton, Ste- 
phen Yan Eensselaer, the Albany Patroon, presided, 
and Yan Buren made the memorial speech. He closed 
with these w^ords ; " I, who never envied him anything 
while living, am now tempted to envy him his grave 
with its honors.'' 

In the winter of 1828 Benjamin F. Butler, who had 
been the law partner of Mr. Yan Buren, was in the 
Assembly from Albany. He was one of the revisers 
of the Statutes, and was sent to the Legislature mainly 
to look after the passage of the new code, John C. 
Spencer, another of the revisers, being in the Senate 
chiefly for the same purpose. The morning after the 



32 KANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

death of the iHustrious governor, Mr. Butler, an ar- 
dent Democrat, announced the event to the Assem- 
bly in a euloginm on Clinton of rare eloquence. 
Mr. Yan Buren followed this line of encomium in his 
speech at Washington ; and then was commenced the 
concerted effort to bring Clinton's Jacksonian friends 
in 'Ne^Y York to the support of the Ivinderhook ma- 
gician, as well as to the aid of the Hero of the Her- 
mitage. 

Yan Buren was in due time nominated for gov- 
ernor for the ensuing election, to help Jackson carry 
]^ew York. His first mission was to conciliate the 
friends of Clinton. In the summer of 1828 he made 
a tour for that purpose. He came to Eochester. The 
next day was the Sabbath. He attended the First 
Presbyterian Church, the wealthy and aristocratic 
church of the town, and occupied the pew of General 
Gould, one of the elders, who had been a life-long 
Federalist and supporter of Clinton. All eyes were 
fixed upon the man who held Jackson's fate in his 
hands. Mr. Yan Buren v>^as rather an exquisite in 
personal appearance. His complexion was a bright 
blonde, and he dressed accordingly. On this occa- 
sion he wore an elegant snuff-colored broadcloth coat 
with velvet collar ; his cravat was orange with mod- 
est lace tips ; his vest was of a pearl hue ; his trousers 
were white duck ; his silk hose corresponded to the 
vest ; his shoes were morocco ; his nicely-fitting gloves 
were yellow kid; his long-furred beaver hat, w4th 
broad brim, was of Quaker color. Roscoe Conkling, 
his distinguished successor in the Senate, never ex- 
celled that. 

My idol, Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, was in- 



WILLIAM H. SEWAED IN 1838. 33 

volvecl in the struggle between Adams and Jackson, 
and I was, therefore, for Adams. Early in the spring 
I made a speech in favor of Adams at Rochester. In 
the summer I attended a Young Men's Adams State 
Convention at Utica, whereof William H. Seward was 
President. Here commenced an acquaintance between 
us which lasted till the death of that great statesman, 
in 1872. I delivered several addresses in Monroe 
County during this campaign, and wrote some arti- 
cles in Mr. Weed's Telegraphy and in November cast 
my first presidential vote. The Adams nominee for 
governor, an old Bucktail, and then on the Supreme 
bench at Washington, was Smith Thompson, after 
whom Yan Buren had named one of his sons. The 
day w^ent against us in ]^ew York, OAving to votes 
thrown away on Solomon Southw^ck, the Anti-ma- 
sonic candidate for governor. A^an Buren Avas cho- 
sen, and in March he resigned, and took the office of 
Secretary of State under Jackson. 

The Convention at Utica Avas the first assemblage of 
the kind in anv state of the Union. The fact, doubt- 
less, seems exquisitely absurd to the fcAv delegates 
that yet live, Avhen they remember that for several 
years they Avere pointed out as "the Boys Avho at- 
tended the Young Men's State Convention." Our 
early celebrity Avas easily Avon. 

I relate the folloAving anecdote as I recall it when 
falling from Mr. ScAvard's lips, soon after the event. 
lie had Avon distinction by his presidency over the 
Young Men's State Convention, and there Avas a gen- 
eral desire in the Adams part}^ for his advancement. 
A member of Congress was to be chosen in the Cavu- 
2* 



34: RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

ga district, but Seward did not aspire to the position. 
He was then twenty-seven years old. The party in 
Cayuga relied on his facile pen to draft the addresses 
of their conventions, which then jBlled the place of 
the long strings of resolutions of a later period. The 
Adams leaders in Auburn had fixed on the nomina- 
tion of an old and popular citizen, not dreaming that 
the approaching convention would fail to accept him. 
Taking it for granted that he would be the candidate, 
young Seward wrote an address describing the nomi- 
nee as an aged inhabitant of Cayuga, who had long 
dwelt in the county, had filled important offices dur- 
ing an honorable career, and Vv^as revered for his years, 
solid attainments, and many virtues. Having pre- 
pared the address, Mr. Seward left Auburn for a dis- 
tant county to try a case in court. 

The convention got into a snarl, and, after a long 
contest, rejected the foreshadowed candidate, and, as 
a last resort, compromised on Seward. In the dusk 
of the evening they adopted Seward's address with- 
out having read it, and sent the record of their pro- 
ceedings to the printer of the weekly newspa]:)er, with 
verbal directions to insert Seward's name i-i the ad- 
dress. It was put in ty])e, and soon appeared. Judge 
of Seward's surprise and chagrin when he arrived 
home to find himself not only nominated for Con- 
gress, but presented to the voters of Cayuga as an 
aged inhabitant, Avho had long dwelt in the county, 
and was revered for his years and virtues, and so on, 
in the glowing phrases of his own address. He 
emerged from the ridiculous position in which the 
convention had placed him by peremptorily declin- 
ing the nomination. 



1 



CHAPTER V. 

Courts aud Counsellors at Rochester in 1827-1830.— Daniel D. 
Barnard. — Addison Gardiner.— Samuel L. Selden.— Occasional 
Visitors. — Elisha Williams. — John C. Spencer.— Daniel Cady.— 
Henry R. Storrs. — Millard Fillmore. — "William H. Seward and 
others. — Thurlow "Weed Chosen to the A.ssembly in 1829.— "A 
good enough Morgan till after the Election." — Weed Founds 
the Albany Eccning Journal in April, 1880. — The State Mends 
"William L. Marcy's "Pantaloons." — The Patch a Campaign 
Issue -when he Ran for Governor. — John W. Taylor, of Sara- 
toga, and the ]Missouri Compromise. — ^larcy and Silas Wright 
on its Repeal. — The Wilmot Proviso.— Ma rcy aud Wright Com- 
pared. — The Rochester Clergy in 1830.— Charles G.Finney, the 
Famous Evangelist. — His Pulpit Oratory. 

In January, 1829, I became Deputy Clerk of Mon- 
roe County. The clerk lived many miles out of town, 
and the responsibilities of the office fell entirely upon 
me. I officiated as clerk for nearly three years in all 
the Courts of Eecord. In witnessing conflicts of law- 
yers — and some of them were the heads of the profes- 
sion — I learned a great deal of law, and especially in 
the matter of evidence. Indeed, I was studying law 
all these years. Among the leaders of the profession 
in Monroe were Daniel D. Barnard, Addison Gardiner, 
and Samuel L. Selden, names that will be instantly 
recognized by the Bar tliroughout the state. We had 
occasional visits from such men as Elisha Williams, 
John C. Spencer, Daniel Cady, Dudley Marvin, B. 
Davis Xoxen, and Henry R. Storrs; while among 



36 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

the young lawyers who tried causes in our county 
were Millard Fillmore and William H. Seward. It 
was under such auspices that I took my first lessons in 
legal lore. 

In 1820 it was resolved to run Thurlow Weed for 
the Assembly. The campaign was to the last degree 
acrimonious. Weed's leadership in the Anti-masonic 
excitement had raised up against him an array of en- 
emies. The famous cry of *•' A good enough Morgan 
till after the election" was worked for all it was 
worth. Weed was a tremendous power at the polls. 
With one hand full of ballots and the other on the 
shoulder of a hesitating voter, it was impossible for 
his prisoner to escape the influence of his magnetic 
eye. Weed's opponent was a prominent member of the 
First Presbyterian congregation. It was deemed im- 
portant that Weed should attend service there on the 
Sabbath previous to the election. He borrowed some 
garments, came in on time, wearing a wretched cra- 
vat and a shocking bad hat. He abstained from the 
polls, but could not help taking a seat in a loft wdiich 
overlooked the principal voting-place of Rochester, 
and for three days during which the contest lasted 
he walked the room like a caged lion. I now and 
then repaired to the room, and, as Weed would look 
out upon the sidewalk, and see a doubtful voter ap- 
proaching the polls, he would wring his hands and 
say, " Oh, what would I give if I could see that man 
for one moment I" Weed was triumphant, and went 
to the Assembly, and in April, 1830, he issued the 
first number of the Alhanfj Evening Journal. 

Anecdotes of the living paint truer likenesses than 



WEED S SHEAKS. — MARCY S BEEECHES. 37 

funeral orations. The phrase " A good enough Mor- 
gan till after the election" grew out of the charge 
that Mr. Weed had cKpjDed off with shears the whis- 
kers of the dead Timothy Monro to make him pass 
for AVilliam Morgan, then not known to be dead, 
who had no w^hiskers. At Rochester, in the Presi- 
dential election of 1828, Mr. Weed, for three days, 
was waving his magic w^and over the ballot-boxes. 
A rough fellow kept all the while close to his lieels, 
clipping at him with shears three feet long, bearing 
the words " A good enough Morgan till after the 
election " engraved on each blade. Mr. Weed en- 
dured the insult with becoming equanimity. 

Who has not heard of William L. Marcy's charge 
against the state '' For mending my pantaloons, 50 
cents"? In 1830 he was sent into western JSTew 
York wdiile Judge of the Supreme Court, under a 
special law, to try the Anti-masonic cases, the act 
providing for the payment of his travelling expenses. 
When auditing accounts as comptroller he always de- 
manded itemized bills, and as special judge he adhered 
to this proper rule, and therefore put the fifty cents 
in with the other items. While running for govern- 
or, in 1832, this item literally cut a figure all over the 
state. At Rochester the Anti-masons erected a pole 
fifty feet high on the main street, and suspended at 
its top a huge pair of black trousers, with a white 
patch on the seat, bearing the figure 50 in red paint, 
where it flapped through three gusty days. The 
grand old governor always enjoyed this fifty-cent epi- 
sode in his political career. So he did the prank of 
the stage-driver in ^vhose coach he was riding in west- 



38 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

em New York in the summer after he Avas chosen 
governor. The road was horribly mnddj and rough. 
As they were wallowing through a bad slough the 
driver shouted, " jSTow, ladies and gentlemen, hold on 
tight, for this is the very hole where Governor Marcy 
tore his breeches." The governor paid for the din- 
ners at the next tavern. 

Governor Marcy relished jokes on himself. Mr. 
Weed did not. 

In the summer of 1830 I was dining with a friend 
at the Mansion House in Albany. On the opposite 
side of the table sat two gentlemen, one of whom I 
recognized as Silas Wright. The other was John W. 
Taylor, who had then been eighteen years in Con- 
gress, and twice speaker. My friend slightly knew 
Mr. Taylor, and introduced me to him, and he intro- 
duced us to Mr. Wright, the state comptroller. These 
three gentlemen represented the leading parties of 
ISTew York, the politics whereof were then in a tran- 
sition condition. Mr. Taylor followed Clay ; Wright 
was a disciple of Yan Buren, and my friend, who had 
been chosen to the State Senate the previous fall, was 
an Anti-mason. Mr. Taylor, being the eldest of the 
company, did most of the talking, and I, being the 
youngest, did most of the listening. Taylor told in- 
teresting anecdotes of public men he had met at 
Washington, and the genial com})troller contributed 
a few racy stories. One of Taylor's heroes was a 
Southern Congressman, who had been conspicuous 
in the contest over the admission of Missouri to the 
Union. This emboldened me to say that I had read, 
as soon as it appeared, Mr. Taylor's famous argument 



MARCY AND WEIGHT COMPARED. 39 

in that memorable controvers}^. The ex-speaker 
seemed pleased that so young a man remembered 
this cro^yning act in his long and distinguished Con- 
gressional career. 

One of the ablest men that Isew York has sent to 
the Senate "was SilaS "Wright, where he sat twelve 
years, till chosen governor of the state. His mod- 
esty would have kept him in the background among 
associates many of whom were eminent in the na- 
tional councils, if his talents for deliberation and de- 
bate had not borne him to their front rank. A man's 
status in the Senate is determined by the calibre and 
skill of the opponents who are selected to cross weap- 
ons with him in the forum. Wright was unostenta- 
tious, studious, thoughtful, grave. He was, therefore, 
liable to be underrated by pushing, flippant, shallow, 
noisy members. Whenever he delivered an elaborate 
speech the Whigs set Clay, Webster, Ewing, or some 
other of their leaders to reply to him. 

William L. Marcy was the immediate predecessor 
of Mr. Wright in the ISTew York comptrollership and 
the United States Senate. Each possessed rare tal- 
ents, but the\^ were totally dissimilar in mental traits 
and political methods. Both were statesmen of scru- 
pulous honesty, who despised jobbery. Marcy was 
wily, and loved intrigue. Wriglit was proverbially 
open and frank. Marcy never trained himself to be 
a public speaker, and did not shine in the hand-to- 
hand conflicts of a body that w^as lustrous with foren- 
sic talents. Few, however, have excelled him in the 
administration of executive oflices, as Avas shown bv 
his twelve years' service as comptroller and governor 



40 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

of 'New York, and his eight years' management of 
the War and State departments at Washington. 

On the great question that loomed threateningly 
on the horizon while they were Democratic leaders 
Wright and Marcy took opposite sides. Wi'ight 
moved calmly along with the advancing liberal sen- 
timent of the period, and died a linn advocate of the 
policy of the Wilmot Proviso. On this test-measure 
Marcy took no step forward. Ten years after the 
grave had closed over his rival he descended to the 
tomb a mild apologist for the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise. 

The clergy of Rochester in 1830 were very able. 
The minister of the First Presbvterian Church was 
Dr. Penny ; the pastor of the second was Mr. James, 
son of the Albany millionaire, familiarly called " Billy " 
James ; the pulpit of the third was vacant ; the Epis- 
copal clergyman was Mr. Whitehouse, subsequently 
the distinguished Bishop of Illinois; Dr. Comstock, 
of the Baptist Church, had served six years in Con- 
gress ; the Methodist preacher was a brother of Mil- 
lard Fillmore. In October, 1830, Charles G. Finney, 
the famous evangelist, came to Rochester to supply 
the pulpit of the Third Presbyterian Church. I had 
been absent a few days, and on my return was asked 
to hear him. It was in the afternoon. A tall, grave- 
looking man, dressed in an unclerical suit of gray, as- 
cended the pulpit. Light liair covered his forehead ; 
his eyes were of a sparkling blue, and his pose and 
movement dignified. I listened. It did not sound 
like preaching, but like a lav/yer arguing a case be- 
fore a court and jury. This was not singular, per- 



CHARLES G. FINNEY IN 1830. 41 

haps, for the speaker had been a law3"er before he 
became a clergyman. The discourse was a chain of 
logic, brightened b^ felicity of illustration and en- 
forced by urgent appeals from a voice of great com- 
pass and melod}^ Mr. Finney was then in the ful- 
ness of his powers, lie had won distinction else- 
where, but was little known in Rochester. He 
preached there six months, usually speaking three 
times on the Sabbath, and three or four times during 
the week. His style was particularly attractive for 
lawyers. He illustrated his points frequently and 
happily by references to legal principles. The first 
effect was produced among the higher classes. It 
began with the judges, the lawyers, tlie phj^sicians, 
the bankers, and the merchants, and worked its Avay 
down to the bottom of society, till nearly everybody 
had joined one or the other of the churches controlled 
by the different denominations. 1 have heard many 
celebrated pulpit orators in various parts of the world. 
Taken all in all, I never knew the superior of Charles 
G. Finney. His sway over an audience was wonder- 
ful. Do not infer that there was a trace of rant or 
fustian in him. You might as well apply these terms 
to heavy artillery on a lield of battle. His sermons 
were usually an hour long, but on some occasions I 
have known an audience which packed every part of 
the house and filled the aisles listen to "him without 
the movement of a foot for two hours and a half. In 
his loftiest moods, and in the higher passages of a 
discourse on a theme of transcendent importance, he 
was the impersonation of majesty and power. Wliile 
depicting the glories or the terrors of the world to 



42 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

come, he trod the pulpit like a giant. His action was 
dramatic. He painted in vivid colors. He gave his 
imagination full play. His voice, wide in scope and 
mellow in pathos, now rung in tones of warning and 
expostulation, and anon melted in sympathetic ac- 
cents of entreaty and encoaragement. Pie was a fine 
singer, and, when a lawyer, used to lead the choir and 
play the bass-viol in his town. In singing the Dox- 
ology he alone could fill the largest edifices. His 
ge&tures were aj^propriate, forcible, and graceful. As 
he would stand with his face towards the side gallery, 
and then involuntarily wheel around, the audience in 
that part of the house towards which he threw his 
arm would dodge as if he were hurling. something at 
them. In describing the sliding of a sinner to per- 
dition, he would lift his long finger towards the ceil- 
ing and slowly bring it down till it pointed to the 
area in front of the pulpit, when half his hearers in 
the rear of the house would rise unconsciously to their 
feet to see him descend into the pit below. Bear in 
mind that this was without the slightest approach to 
rhodomontade or exuberant excitement on the part 
of the orator. Mr. Finney regarded his success at 
Rochester as among the greatest of his remarkable 
career. In theology he was a New-School Presbyte- 
rian. 



CHAPTER YI. 

The Author Goes to Lane Semiuaiy in 1831.— President Lj-man 
Beecher Tried for Heresy at Cincinnati.— Henry Ward Beeclier 
Says his Father is " Plagued Good at Twisting." — New and Old 
School Theological Magnates.— " In Adam's Fall we Sinned 
all." — Dr. Bemau's Parody. — Dr. Beecher's Eccentricities. — 
First Anti-slavery Speech. — James G. Birney, and General Bir- 
ney, his Son. — "Boys, Keep your Eye on that Flag." — First 
Mob.— Anti-slavery Debate at Lane in 1834. — Its Consequences. 
— Early Anti-slavery Career. — The Author Addresses the ]\Ias- 
sachusetts Legislature on Freedom, in 1837. — The Epoch of 
Mobs.— East Greenwich. — Utica. — Boston. — Newport. — Provi- 
dence. — Bishop Clarli of Rhode Island. — Methodist Chuixh 
Burned. — Pennsylvania Hall Burned. — Quaker Meeting-house 
Sacked in Portland.— John Neal, the Poet, Puts the Mob down. 
— Senator William Pitt Fessenden.— "I am that Person." — Mob 
in Norwich, Connecticut. — Mobbed in many States.— Never in 
Yermout. 

I DESIRED to supph" deficiencies in an imperfect edu- 
cation. After studying tlie classics a year or more 
in and around Kochester, during which time one of 
my instructors was Rev. Ferdinand D. W. "Ward, fa- 
ther of the now notorious Ferdinand Ward, of Grant 
& Ward (the Wards were a distinguislied Rochester 
family), I went in. the spring of 1832 to Lane Semi- 
nary, near Cincinnati, over which Rev. Dr. Lyman 
Beecher was to preside. Having to support younger 
brothers in their educational as})irations, I would fain 
save a little by going to Cincinnati part way on a raft 
of lumber. I helped to load a raft at (^lean, N. Y., 



4i: EAKEOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

and then aided to guide it down the whirUng currents 
of the Alleghany River to Pittsburgh. There I took 
a deck passage on a steamboat to Cincinnati. I be- 
lieve I did my full share of the work of managing an 
oar on the raft, and preventing it from following the 
bad example of several other rafts, which lost their 
heads and scattered their bones along the banks of 
the turbulent river. 

Dr. Beecher was tried for heresy by the Presbytery 
of Cincinnati for certain utterances of his in l\ew 
England. The case had reached the synod, which 
met in Cincinnati in 1834. The testimony was all in. 
One forenoon Dr. Beecher commenced summing up in 
his defence. As usual, he was able and ingenious while 
addressing his distinguished auditory. On the ad- 
journment at noon he took a select party to his house 
for dinner, among whom were some of his antago- 
nists. As was the doctor's wont in enthusiastic hours, 
he kept right on making his speech at the dinner- 
table. He was vivid, elastic, and facetious. He seemed 
particularly desirous of favorably impressing his mod- 
erate opponents. Suddenly there piped up from the 
lower end of the table a voice which uttered these 
Avords : " Father, I listened to your speech in the syn- 
od this morning, and I know you are ])lagued good at 
twisting, but if you can twist your creed on to the 
Westminster Confession of Faith, you can twist bet- 
ter than I think you can." The doctor's countenance 
fell, but only for a moment. He suddenly rallied, and 
said, " All my boys are smart, and some of them are 
impudent." Then, of course, rose a laugh. The voice 
that piped up from the lower end of the table belonged 



LYMAN AND HENRY WAKD BEECHEK. 45 

to Henry Ward Beecher. Wlietlier lie can twist his 
creed on to the Confession of Faith it does not be- 
come me to decide. The doctor's case went up to tlie 
General Assembly, and was yet undecided ^vhen the 
Presbyterian Church was rent in two in 1838. 

Doctor Beecher was one of the magnates of the 
New School, in whose ranks shone Dr. Nathaniel W. 
Taylor, of New^ Haven ; Albert Barnes, of Philadel- 
phia ; Dr. N. S. S. Beman, of Troy ; and Charles G. 
Finney. Mr. Beman was the debater of his faction. 
The leader of the CI 1- School side was Dr. Ashbel 
Green, President of Princeton College. The combat- 
ants fought just like the world's people, and kept the 
Church in turmoil for years. Dr. Beman was often 
sarcastic. It will be remembered that in the fly-leaf 
of the old catechism were poetic couplets, arranged 
under the letters of the alphabet, and set to horrible 
rhymes. The one under A read : 

"In Adam's fall. 
We sinned all." 

Dr. Beman used to repeat this, and then add to it : 

" In Adam's fall, 
We sinned all; 
In Cain's murder 
We sinned furder; 
By Doctor Green, 
Our sin is seen." 

I could give many anecdotes illustrating the pecul- 
iar characteristics of Dr. Beecher ; but I forbear ex- 
cept to tell one, to show his chronic absent-minded- 
ness. He preached in the Third Presbyterian Church, 
the aristocratic, rich church of Cincinnati. He was 



46 KANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

always doing some odd thing. One Sunday he came 
in late ; the house was packed ; he walked rapidly up 
the aisle with a roll of blotted manuscript in his hand ; 
ascended the pulpit; opened the Bible; spread his 
manuscript, took his text, and was about to begin his 
sermon without any ]ireliminary exercises. One of 
the elders rose from his pew, and stood. The elder 
looked at the doctor ; the doctor looked at the elder. 
The elder came out of his pew, the doctor came down 
the stairs, and they met. The elder whispered a few 
words in the doctor's ear, the doctor reascended, 
closed his Bible, and said, " Let us pray." This was 
a specimen of many such performances. I don't know 
of any better way of accounting for it than to tell 
wdiat the doctor said to us at the seminary when giv- 
ing a lecture on oratory. " Young gentlemen," said 
he, " don't stand before a looking-glass and make ges- 
tures. Pump yourselves brimful of your subject till 
you can't hold another drop, and then knock out the 
bung and let nature caper." In the instance of the 
sermon the doctor had pumped himself full in his 
lil)rarv, and when he reached the church was too 
eager to knock out the bung. 

In the summer of 1832, 1 was passing through the 
hall of the seminarv, and saw on the bulletin-board 
of my club that the question for debate that evening- 
was this : " If the slaves of the South were to rise in 
insurrection, would it be the duty of the North to aid 
in putting it down?" I glanced at the board, and 
never dreamed there would be more than one side to 
the question, and that in the negative. When the hot 
evening came, to my surprise everybody arranged 



FIRST A NTI- SLAVERY SPEECH. 47 

themselves in the iiihrniative part of the room except 
myself. As it afterwards came to pass that this was 
the beginning of my life-work, and lent color to my 
whole future existence, I shall be pardoned for a few 
personal details. This was in the midst of the South- 
ampton insurrection in Yirginia, Avhen Kat Turner, a 
deluded negro, had raised an insurrection which made 
the cheek of the ancient dominion turn pale and its 
knees smite together in terror. As the onl}^ person 
on my side of the pending del)ate, I had the privilege 
of waiting till all my opponents were through before 
I spoke. I first divested myself of my cravat, then 
of my coat, then of my vest. As the debate went on, 
and the perspiration started from me in unwonted 
streams, I repaired to my room, took off my boots, 
put on my slippers, and returned to the club. When 
I arose to speak, I might be regarded as standing in 
the regular ball costume in Arkansas, viz., a shirt col- 
lar and a pair of spurs ; but I never spoke with more 
fervor and satisfaction for three quarters of an hour 
than on that occasion. This was my first anti-slaverv 
speech. For nearly forty years I '* fought it out on 
that line," till I saw the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and 
Fifteenth Amendments incorporated into the Consti- 
tution, and Horace Greeley the regular Democratic 
candidate for president, when I was ready to say with 
one of old, "■ I!^ow lettest Thou th}^ servant depart in 
peace, . . . for mine e3"es have seen thy salvation." 

In 1834 I went to Danville, Ky., to obtain a letter 
from Mr. Birney, giving his reasons for joining the 
Anti-slavery Society. It Avas a remarkably able doc- 
ument. and had a large circulation. He had been a 



48 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

slaveliolder, belonged to one of the first Kentucky 
families, and was a profound lawyer. He was cor- 
responding secretary, with Elizur Wright and me, 
of the American Anti-slavery Society. I will disre- 
gard the chronological order of events by adding that, 
in the London Convention of 1840, he, by his solid and 
varied attainments, rich fund of information, courtesy, 
candor, and fine debating powers, inspired confidence in 
his statements and reflected credit upon his country. 
He was a wise and patriotic man. The Liberty party 
honored itself by making him its first candidate for 
the presidency. His son, David B. Birney, sacrificed 
a lucrative law-practice in Philadelphia to become a 
defender of liberty and the constitution on the battle- 
field. While commanding a corjjs in front of Eich- 
mond, in 1804, he was stricken with fever and took to 
his couch at home, where he became delirious. One 
night, his cheeks all ablaze, he suddenly sprang up in 
the bed and shouted, in tones that made the house 
ring, " Boys I keep your eye on that flag !'* and fell 
back dead. 

I attended the anniversary of the American Anti- 
slavery Society in Kew York in 1834, and there en- 
countered the first of my two hundred mobs. We 
had a great Anti-slavery debate at Lane Seminary, 
and formed a society during that fall. Pro-slavery 
trustees required that we should dissolve it. We re- 
fused to do so. They then passed arbitrary rules in 
respect to discussion, and even conversation, on the 
subject of slavery at the seminary. A goodly por- 
tion of us, who were not to be thus throttled, left. It 
was a heavv blow to the seminary, which hardly re- 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. PETER PARLEY. 49 

gained its feet for the next six years. I was on the 
committee that issued an address in vindication of our 
course. It produced a deep impression. In the early- 
spring of 1S3.J Mr. Birney and myself went east on 
an Anti-slavery mission. We spoke at Philadelphia 
and New York. I then held meetings at Providence, 
R. I., Boston, Mass., and Concord, N. H., intending to 
return west and pursue my studies. On reaching New 
York I received a commission as general agent of the 
American Anti-slavery Society, I immediately en- 
tered upon the work which occupied so large a share 
of my life. 

AVhen I entered this field slavery had the State and 
Church by the throat ; and though the Abolitionists 
advocated peaceful measures for the emancipation of 
the bondmen, they were everywhere at the mercy of 
mobs. For the dozen years following the fall of 1834: 
I was engaged in this conflict. I was several years 
on the executive committee and secretary of the Amer- 
ican Anti-slavery Society, and as such I addressed 
millions of men and women in every northern state, 
from Indiana to Maine, and in Kentucky, Maryland, 
and Delaware, and in England, Scotland, Ireland, and 
France. I appeared before ten legislative commit- 
tees in seven states, and addressed the first committee 
of that kind in the country — that of the Senate and 
House of Massachusetts, in Februar}^, 1837, in sup- 
port of John Quincy Adams's heroic struggle in Con- 
gress. The Hon. S. G. Goodrich — better known as 
Peter Parley — was a member of that committee. I 
spoke for two days in the Hall of Eepresentatives in 
Boston ; and at the close joint resolutions were passed 
3 



50 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

by the legislature in favor of the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia, and John Quincy Ad- 
ams's course in Congress was approved. Three hun- 
dred thousand copies of my speech on that occasion 
were distributed. 

The early Anti-slavery men doubtless made hard 
hits. But, in the language of Webster in his reply 
to Ilayne, we recognized the fact that there were 
blows to take as well as blows to give. Indeed, it 
Avas ray habit to covet questioning while on the plat- 
form, and to invite replies when I was through. And 
what was the usual response — mohs. Vice-president 
Wilson, in the " Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," is 
my authority for saying that I was mobbed at least two 
hundred times. I always spoke strongly in favor of 
the Constitution, the Union, and the Church; and 
yet, in ten free states, through a series of years, I ad- 
vocated the claims of the slaves to their liberty at the 
hazard of my life. I have a right to say this, because, 
in this turbulent epoch, I was voluntarily pleading for 
a humble race which, by no possibility, could reward 
me, or ever hear of my existence. 

In 1835 I went into the town of East Greenwich, 
R. I., and was the guest of Judge Brown, a gentle- 
man of high standing. My Anti-slavery meeting was 
advertised. A constable arrived at Judge Brown's, 
and I was served with a warrant warning me out of 
town as a vagrant without visible means of support, 
and therefore liable to become a town charge. Judge 
Brown gave bail for me, and I held the meeting, and 
invited the constable to hear me. In those days it 
was tlie practice to get signatures to the Anti-slavery 



THE MOB EPOCH OF 1835. , 51 

roll. The first name signed was that of the consta- 
ble who had served the warrant. I viewed the capt- 
ure of that constable as a great achievement. 

We resorted to odd expedients to get in Anti-sla- 
very speeches. The temperance cause was po])ular. 
In 1835, in Ehode Island, I agreed "to address an audi- 
ence an hour and a half on tempemnce if they would 
then let me speak an hour and a half on slavery. On 
the next Sabbath the compact Avas faithfully fulfilled 
on both sides, in the presence of a large concourse. 

The 3^ear 1835 was an epoch of mobs. In the fore- 
noon of October 21, 1835, a large convention met at 
Utica to form a State Anti-slavery Society. Judge 
Henry Brewster, of Monroe County, my uncle, pre- 
sided. Leaders like Lewis Tappan, Alvan Stewart, 
Beriah Green, and Gerrit Smith were present. A 
mob, headed by the Utica member of Congress, and 
afterwards chief -justice of the state, entered the 
church where the convention was sitting, and dis- 
persed it by violence. To avoid mistakes, I will add 
that this man's name was Samuel Beardsley. No 
bodily harm was done to any one in particular, ex- 
cept the tearing of a few garments and the shaking 
of cowardly canes over the heads of some aged Abo- 
litionists. 

In the afternoon of the same day the Boston Fe- 
male Anti-slavery Society, in which Mary S. Parker 
and Maria W. Chapman were conspicuous members, 
held a meeting. William Lloyd Garrison was pres- 
ent. A violent mob, which some of the Boston 
newspapers called an assemblage of "gentlemen of 
property and standing," compelled the ladies to aban- 



52 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

don the hall wherein their society was sitting. They 
pursued Mr. Garrison into an adjoining building, 
Avhere he had retired to avoid these peculiar " gen- 
tlemen." They seized him, put a rope around his 
body, and led him throui^h the streets. Pretty much 
all that was really accomplished by these '' respecta- 
ble " rioters may be summed up by saying that they 
thoroughly frightened the women and covered them- 
selves with infamy. 

In the evening of the same day I was honored with 
a little mob while addressing a small meeting at New- 
port, R. I. The Anti-slavery advocates in that town 
were " a feeble folk." The mob was of respectable 
size in comparison with the dimensions of the assem- 
bly. It was led by an ex-lieutenant or midshipman 
of the navy. They stoned the building, smashed the 
windows, and drove us into the street. 

Soon afterwards I met Lewis Tappan. He face- 
tiously said that he had ascertained the distance from 
Utica to Boston, and thence to Newport, and the pre- 
cise time when the mobs broke out, so as to see liow 
many miles an hour the devil had to travel to take 
charge of all three of them. 

In 1836 I was outi^ageously treated while attem])t- 
ing to speak to a meeting in a Methodist church at 
Providence. The mills of the gods ground slowly, 
but they did not stop. I addressed an immense Fre- 
mont out-door meeting at Providence in 1856. In 
respect to slavery, I dealt with it far more severely 
than in 1836. There were plenty of governors on the 
platform, and Bishop Thomas M. Clark, of that dio- 
cese, was at my right hand. A man on the platform, 



PKOVIDENCE. — PHILADELPHIA. — POETLAND. 53 

bedecked with orders, was chief raarshaL His enthu- 
siasm, in repeatedly calHng for cheers, bothered me 
while speaking. After I had finished I asked who 
that chief marshal was, and the bishop said, " Don't 
you remember that, in 183G, when you were deliver- 
ing an Ant i- slavery address in the Methodist church 
here, a mob came rushing up the aisles, shaking their 
fists at you and yelling, and finally broke up the 
meeting ? Well, he was the leader of that mob, and 
now he is making amends." 

The respectable individuals who encouraged these 
crimes against society had no regard for the kind of 
edifices their vulgar tools assailed. I delivered one 
evening an address in a beautiful little church in Liv- 
ingston county, N. Y. I cannot now recall the name 
of the town where I spoke. The next morning the 
building was a heap of ashes. Pro-slavery incendia- 
ries had set it on fire during the night. 

This calls to mind the burning of Pennsylvania 
Hall, in Philadelphia, a large, costly structure, erect- 
ed by the friends of free speech. It was dedicated in 
May, 1838, with imposing ceremonies, Avherein I bore 
a humble part. The principal oration was by Alvan 
Stewart. Whittier contributed a noble poem. On 
May 21 the women were holding an Anti- slavery 
meeting in the hall, when a brutal mob, which some 
newspapers called indignant citizens, burned it down. 
For many years the charred ruins frowned on the city 
founded by AYilliam Penn, and which witnessed the 
birth of American independence. 

In Portland, in 1838, an Anti-slavery convention sat 
for four days in the old Quaker meeting-house. Gen- 



54 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

eral Samuel Fessenden, the leading member of the bar 
of Maine, presided, but not all his influence could de- 
ter the mob. The meeting-house was utterly riddled. 
At length the best men of Portland said, " This won't 
do." The poet John Neal organized about a hun- 
dred special constables, and, leading them himself, put 
the mob down. Years afterwards, m.eeting General 
Fessenden's son, Senator AVilliam Pitt Fessenden, in 
Washington city, I eulogized his father's steady cour- 
age in 1838. He asked, " Do you recollect that on 
one of those evenings a young man took your arm as 
you walked out of the meeting to go through the out- 
side mob, and said, ' I will accompany you to your 
lodgings, and share the peril with you' f ' I told him 
I well recollected it, and had often wished I knew 
Avho the young gentleman was. " I am that person," 
said tlie senator. 

To close the subject of mobs, and make room for 
other matters, I will refer, quite out of the order of 
time, to one that occurred in my native county when 
I was practising law at Boston. In 1845, I went to 
I^orwich to deliver an Anti-slavery address in the 
town-hall. The hall Avas stoned, and all the windows 
broken, and we adjourned until evening. In the in- 
termission, three-inch planks were spiked on the in- 
side of the window near which I had to stand, to 
s]iield me from the missiles of the mob. In that 
same town-hall I addressed a crowded meeting in the 
Fremont canvass — a meeting presided over by Will- 
iam A. Buckingham, subsequently governor and sen- 
ator — and I was introduced to the audience by Gov- 
ernor Chauncey F. Cleveland. I remembered the mob, 



NOEWICH. VERMONT. 55 

and freed my mind for two hours, A throng came 
over from Griswold and Preston, and I received en- 
thusiastic plaudits instead of whizzing brickbats. 

In remote days it was fashionable for everybody to 
read the "Waverley novels. An English gentleman, 
who had lono; been in foreiirn countries, returned 
home. Wherever he went, he was pointed out as the 
man who had not read the Waverley novels. He 
liked the distinction so well that he resolutely ab- 
stained from those fascinating volumes. By a queer 
sort of analogy, this reminds me of the course of Ver- 
mont during the mob period, where I delivered from 
time to time some Anti-slavery addresses, I was 
mobbed in every state from Indiana to Maine, except 
Vermont. I never heard of an Anti-slavery mob with- 
in its borders. The land of Stark abstained from that 
fascinating recreation. 

I shall say no more about mobs, though I " assist- 
ed " at a few after the one in Norwich. 



CHAPTER VII. 

John G. Wbittier and the Author Visit Gettysburg for Anti- 
slavery Lecturers. — Whittier's Services to Libert}-. — Caleb Cash- 
ing a Candidate for Congress in 1838. — Wbittier Gets a Letter 
that Averts Cushing's Defeat. — Origin of the Republican Party. 
— Peculiar Honors paid to John Quincy Adams in 1837. — 
Author at AVashingtou in 1838. — Adams and the Right of Peti- 
tion. — Speaker Polk. — Latimer's Case. — The Rec4 on Mr. 
Adams's Desk.— Vice-President Dick Johnson Compared with 
Van Buren as a Presiding Officer.— The Lions in the Senate in 
1838. — Foreshadowing the Methods for Overthrowing Slavery. 
— The Author's Early Newspaper Productions. — Sylvester Gra- 
ham, the Dietetic Reformer; his System. 

Wishing to enlarge its lecturing corps, the Anti- 
slavery Society deputed me, in 1836, to go through the 
country and employ seventy public speakers. I trav- 
elled far on this errand, paying special attention to 
colleges, theological schools, and young lawyers. I 
visited Gettysburg on my tour. I was at the Luther- 
an Theological Institution on Seminary Eidge, which 
loomed high above the village on the west. The view 
was beautiful. It swept over Cemetery Ridge, Gulps 
Hill, and the Round Top, lying easterly of the town. 
The intervening fields smiled with fruit trees and 
waving grain. Little dreamed I then that twenty- 
seven years later these landmarlvs would win world- 
wide celebrity by listening to the roar of one of the 
bloodiest battles of modern times, waged to defend 
and destroy the cause I was there to promote. 



WHITTIER. — CALEB GUSHING. 57 

John G. Whittier accompanied me during a portion 
of this tour in search of lecturers, cheering me with 
his genial presence and wise counsel. 

I am not so beside myself as to imagine that any 
encomium from me could add to "Whittier's literary 
fame. But having toiled by his side for several years, 
and spent many a delightful hour in his cottage at 
Ames bury, it may become me to record that he ren- 
dered valuable aid to the Anti-slavery cause by his 
brave example, while his pen sent ringing words of 
encouragement and shed unfading lustre over the field 
where the battle raged. 

After the expiration of a week or two the picked 
men whom we had selected 'assembled in New York, 
and were instructed in the nsual Anti-slavery argu- 
ments by a series of discourses in which Theodore D. 
Weld took a prominent part. Thus equipped, they 
reaped where the harvest was abundant and the la- 
borers few. 

In 1838 the Abolitionists began to put test ques- 
tions to candidates for Congress, and then cast their 
votes for or against them as their answers were satis- 
factory or otherwise. Caleb Cushing was one of tliose 
who replied unsatisfactorily. We held a convention 
at Salem, Mass., to take measures to defeat him, I 
handled him severely in a s])eech in a church in the 
evening. I was not then aware that he was a listen- 
er in a dark corner of the gallery. Mr. Whittier, a 
friend of Cushing, visited him early the next morn- 
ing at his hotel, and told him that he must instantly 
write another letter to appease the Abolition conven- 
tion, which was about to adjourn, or he would be 

a* 



58 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

ruined at the polls. His night robe was very thin, 
and the cliair was very cold. But the epistle was 
penned, and the writer was re-elected. Caleb Gush- 
ing was a man of extraordinary talents, but an un- 
scrupulous politician. The exposure of his duplicity 
in regard to Secession finally brought him to grief 
when he was nominated for Chief -justice of flie United 
States Supreme Court. 

The Republican party grew out of this practice of 
putting questions to candidates. This plan proving 
to be unsatisfactory, the Liberty party was organized 
in the spring of 1840, with James G. Birney as its 
presidential nominee. This ripened into the Free- 
soil party of 1848, when Martin Van Buren led its at- 
tack on the slavery propagandists. This ultimately 
widened into the Eepublican party of 1855-56. 

John Quincy Adams received extraordinary hon- 
ors in the year 1837. He encountered unusual abuse 
in the early weeks of the session of Congress in that 
vear, because of his fearless defence of the rifflit of 
petition. He was threatened with expulsion from the 
House, and assassination on its floor. But there came 
a recoil of the wave. I have already stated that the 
Massachusetts Legislature, in February, 1837, by the 
unanimous vote of both Houses, approved his course 
at Washington. 

I participated in a scene at Quincy, in the follow- 
ing summer, which showed the reverential regard felt 
for him by his constituents. A great throng of gen- 
tlemen of both political parties met in the town-hall 
of the ancient home of the Adamses, to present him 
with a cane made of the wood of the dismantled frig- 



EXTEAORDINARY HONORS TO ADAMS. 59 

ate Constitution, that had won fame in the war of 
1812-15, by capturing the British frigates Guerriere 
and Java. The sage delivered a characteristic speech 
on receiving this historic memorial. ]S[ear the close 
of his address his hand and voice quivered with emo- 
tion as he illustrated his own position by relating a 
story of a scarred Kussian soldier who was ushered 
into the presence of the emperor, and received a medal 
for an extraordinary feat of valor in a recent battle. 
Suddenly mounting the top step of the rostrum in the 
hall, Mr. Adams exclaimed, in shrill tones, " The old 
soldier shook from head to foot as he took the medal, 
and was only able to stammer out his tlianks by say- 
ing, ' Though I tremble in the presence of your maj- 
esty, I never trembled in the presence of your majes- 
ty's enemies.' " The hit was so happy that I thought 
the cheers would bring the roof down. 

I witnessed the crowning honor bestowed upon the 
veteran in this memorable year. He was then under 
the ban of the pro-slavery party of the country. Nev- 
ertheless, the elite of the commercial metropolis in- 
vited him to deliver the semi-centennial address com- 
memorating the formation of the Federal Constitution. 
In September he pronounced an appropriate and in- 
structive oration before a learned and brilhant assem- 
bly that filled to repletion the Middle Dutch Church, 
then the largest audience-room in the City of Isew 
York. 

The services of Mr. Adams during his seventeen 
years in Congress eclipsed his previous civil career, 
long, varied, and lustrous though it had been. He 
became the ablest and most dreaded debater in a leg- 



60 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

islative hall that displayed rare oratorical talents. In 
many close, protracted, and almost savage collisions 
with trained, bold, and bitter antagonists, like Wise, 
Rhett, Marshall, and their coadjutors, he showed his 
superiority in learning, courage, sarcasm, and every 
element of dialectic skill in one of the famous delib- 
erative bodies of the world. 

I went to AVashington, in 1838, to look after the 
imperilled right of petition. Mr. Adams, who was 
fighting our battle in Congress, received me with 
marked courtesy, partly, perhaps, because I had de- 
fended him so warmly in my speech before the com- 
mittee of the Massachusetts Legislature. I saw him 
on a field-day in the House. He coolly presented his 
pile of Anti-slavery petitions one by one, and scari- 
fied the Southern members Avho interrupted him. Mr. 
Polk, the speaker, was annoyed, but could not help 
himself. Indeed, he was evidently afraid of Mr. Ad- 
ams, the old man eloquent. In youth he had ex- 
hibited the wisdom of age ; in age he was displaying 
the visfor of vouth. 

At a later day I witnessed the spectacle when Mr. 
Adams presented the petition in the famous Latimer 
case, the fugitive slave that sought shelter in Boston, 
and Avhose beleaguered master was finally persuaded, 
by stress of circumstances and a few dollars, to aban- 
don the attempt to recover his human chattel. The 
petition was of such an immense length that, for con- 
venient handling, it was wound on a great reel, Avhich, 
on the morning of presentation, stood on Mr. Adams's 
desk in the House. This unique object was the ob- 
served of all observers in the hall, which Avas crowd- 



EMINENT SENATORS IN 1838. 61 

ed to repletion, as the old patriot shook its rustling 
folds in the face of the frowning speaker. 

A word about speakers of the House. I have seen 
nine in the chair. As presiding officers I think Mr. 
Banks was the best and Mr. Pennington the worst. 

While at Washington, in 1838, I spent a few hours 
in the Senate. The lions were there — Clay, Webster, 
Calhoun, Wright, and Benton. I had previously heard 
Mr. Clay on a platform in Xew York, Mr. Webster 
])efore a jury in Boston, and Mr. Wright in the Xew 
York Senate. I now listened to a ten-minute speech 
each from Mr. Benton and Mr. Calhoun, and had to 
be therewith content. Vice-president Kichard M. 
Johnson was in the chair. He was shabbily dressed, 
and to the last degree clumsy. What a contrast be- 
tween him and Martin Van Buren, his urbane, ele- 
gant predecessor. Colonel Johnson owed his promo- 
tion largely to two acts, neither of which he ])er- 
formed. He was as guiltless of the killing of Tecum- 
seh at the battle of the Thames, in the war of 1812, 
as was William Tecumseh Sherman, and he did not 
write a line of the famous Sunday-mail report. 

In 1838 I made a si)eeoli before the American Anti- 
slavery Society, wherein I predicted that slavery 
v\^ould ultimately fall by means of an amendment of 
the Constitution, and that this would result from the 
preponderance of free states in the West. My pre- 
diction came to pass nearly thirty years afterwards. 
The speech is on record. 

From 1832 onward I wrote much for the Anti- 
slavery press, and for such religious and political 
newspapers as would give us a hearing. My contri- 



G2 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

bations would fill volumes, for which, as a general 
rule, I received no pay. 

In 1830 I contributed a series of articles to the New 
Yorh American, conducted by Charles King, subse- 
quently President of Columbia College. The title of 
the series was " Glances at Men and Things." The 
signature was " Rambler." The topics were miscella- 
neous. Some of the numbers were widely copied. 
The author was not then known. 

Dr. Sylvester Graham was one of the early Anti- 
slavery men, but will be longest remembered as the 
most radical dietetic reformer in the country. He 
began to be generally known in New England and 
]!^ew York about the year 1830, and elicited attention 
in rather a narrow circle as a writer and lecturer for 
twenty years. He was well educated, and, though 
ultra in his opinions on food and regimen, was a log- 
ical and eloquent speaker. The salient feature of his 
system was a rigid adherence to a vegetable diet ; or, 
rather, entire abstinence from meat, fish, and oleag- 
inous substances of whatever kind, butter included. 
He waged exterminating war not only on intoxicating 
drinks, but on coffee, tea, pepper, and stimulating con- 
diments of every description. Like all reformers, he 
overshot the true mark, but we are indebted to him 
for many improvements in the field he assiduously 
cultivated. Those that drink chocolate or milk, or 
only water, at their meals, and eat oatmeal or cracked 
wheat at breakfast, and prefer bread made of unbolt- 
ed flour, and cut short their fat meats and crisp pastry, 
and substitute therefor ripe vegetables and fruits, 
and believe in fresh air, frequent baths, and long 



DOCTOR SYLVESTER GRAHAM. 63 

walks, should remember their patron saint, Sylvester 
Graham. 

There was a dash of amusing egotism in Graham. 
One day he had partaken very freely of cucumbers, 
green corn, and watermelon (as substitutes for the sa- 
vory meats on the table) at the house of a friend. 
The mixture was too much for an internal organism 
enervated by close application to study in the previ- 
ous three months. AVhile expounding his dietetic 
system to the dinner-])arty with his usual fervor, he 
was seized with intense pains in the stomach and co- 
lon. He threw himself on the carpet, and, while roll- 
ing around and writhing in agony, would now and 
then ejaculate, " Yes, gentlemen ! Posterity will do 
me justice ! (Oh, my bowels !) Yes, gentlemen ! Pos- 
terity will build monuments to my memory! (Oh, 
these gripes !) Yes, gentlemen, my system will flour- 
ish and ultimately spread through the world." 

Among Graham's early disciples were William Cul- 
len Bryant, Horace Greeley, and Charles G. Finney. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

Abolitionists and tlie Constitution. — Anti-slavery Leaders: Garri- 
son and others in Boston; Tappan and others in New York; 
Smith and others in Central New York; Lovejoy and others in 
the Western States. — Celebrated Women: Prudence Crandall; 
Mrs. Child; The Grimkes; Mrs. Mott; Lucy Stone; Harriet 
Beecher Stowe; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Susan B. Anthony. — 
Leading Colored Men: Frederick Douglass; Robert Purvis. — 
Eccentricities of Abolitionists. — A Motley Group in Boston. — 
Father Lanipson and his Scythe-snath. — Crazy George Wash- 
ington Mellen. — Disturbing Religious Meetings. — Stephen S. 
Foster Imitates George Fox. — Charles C. Burleigh's Vile Gar- 
ments Torn off and Carried away. — Rev. Dr. Channing Eulogizes 
Burleigh's Oratory. — Controversy between Garrison and Wendell 
Phillips. — Lord Timoth}^ Dexter. 

The Abolitionists were compelled not only to study 
the science of mobs, but also to familiarize themselves 
Avith the Federal Constitution. That instrument had 
no more diligent students than those who conducted 
the Anti- slavery argument, for, from the outset, 
they were opjjosed on constitutional grounds by the 
great leaders in State and Church. The ignorance of 
its text and spirit by persons well informed on other 
subjects was both amazing and amusing. I was rid- 
ing in a stage-coach, in New England, when slavery 
became the topic of discussion. My antagonist, opu- 
lent in flesh and pomposity, was called Judge, and 
had been in the Legislature. For ready reference, 
the Anti-slavery Society had caused to be published 



PROMINENT ANTI-SLAVEKY LEADERS. 65 

a copy of the Constitution so small that it conld be 
put in one's vest-pocket. During the warm debate 
the Judge purported to quote from the Constitution 
something that was not in it. I pulled out the small 
brochure, and, tendering it to him, said, quietly, " Sir, 
will you turn to the clause you have cited ?" Draw- 
ing himself up, he replied, with mingled dignity and 
contempt, " That little primer the Constitution ? Why, 
the Constitution of the United States is as big as a 
family Bible !" 

In and around Boston clustered a constellation of 
leaders in the Anti-slavery cause whose central fig- 
ures were William Lloyd Garrison, Francis Jackson, 
John Gr. Whittier, Samuel J. May, John Pierpont, 
Wendell Phillips, and Amos A. Phelps. Its equal in 
importance appeared in and near IS^ew York, whose 
most conspicuous members were Arthur Tappan, Lew- 
is Tappan, James G. Birney, Elizur Wright, William 
Jay, Joshua Leavitt, and Theodore D. Weld. These 
two cities were the fountains whence arose currents 
that flowed to the remotest parts of the country — in 
heavy volumes at the East and Xorth, in trickling 
and fitful streams at the West and South. 

For many years an influence in behalf of the slave 
radiated from the central counties of I*^ew York which 
was felt beyond the borders of the state. It was large- 
ly due to four men quite unlike in salient characteris- 
tics, though each was remarkable in his sphere. They 
were acute reasoners, ready writers, and never quailed 
before mobs. Those who witnessed the majestic elo- 
quence of Gerrit Smith, the quaint humor and pa- 
thetic appeals of Alvan Stewart, the luminous logic 



6Q RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

and merciless sarcasm of Beriali Green, and the in- 
structive disquisitions and pointed periods of William 
Goodell will regard this as a faint tribute to their 
abilities and services. 

The most rapid glance over this locality could not 
fail to see Wesley Bailey, long the able editor of the 
Liberty Press^ and subsequently elected a State-Prison 
Inspector. He was the father of E. Prentiss Bailey, 
now the editor of the JJtica Ohserver. In 1838 Kev. 
Mr. Hawley, a Methodist clergyman, removed from 
North Carolina to central New York. Having wit- 
nessed the evils of slavery, he was of great value to 
the Emancipation party. He was the father of Gen- 
eral Joseph K. Hawley, who served with honor in 
the war of the rebellion, and is now the editor of the 
Hartford Cou rant 2iTi(\. Senator in Congress from Con- 
necticut. 

Turning westwardly, no one beyond the Allegha- 
nies would overlook Elijah Parrish Lovejoy, the Alton 
martyr : Cassius M. Clav, the brave Kentuckian ; 
Joshua It. Giddings, Salmon P. Chase, and Gamaliel 
Bailey, subsequently editor of the National Era. 

Emancipation in this country and Great Britain 
owes much to women. In 1824 Elizabeth Heyrick 
issued in England a pamphlet advocating immediate, 
as contrasted with the prevailing doctrine of gradual, 
abolition. It struck the keynote of the contest which 
resulted ten years later in the overthrow of slavery 
in the British West Indies. 

In 1833 Prudence Crandall changed her boarding- 
school for white girls at Canterbury, Conn., into a 
school for colored girls. Miss Crandall was a ce'mi- 



DISTINGUISHED WOMEN. 67 

Quaker, of benevolent disposition, mild manners, and 
the highest respectability. I took unusual interest 
in her enterprise (though far away at Lane Seminary), 
because Canterbury adjoined the town w^here I was 
born. Immediately there commenced a persecution 
of Miss Crandall and her scholars that Avould have 
disgraced barbarians in the dark ages. Its ferocity 
was excelled only by its meanness. The citizens 
dragged her school-house into a swamp, grossh' in- 
sulted the preceptress, and pelted the timid pupils 
with stones and offensive filth. Of course the school 
w^as broken up. The leader of Miss Crandall's de- 
fenders was the eloquent divine, Samuel J. May, who 
then preached in Brooklyn, near Canterbury. The 
leader of her infamous assailants was Andrew T. 
Judson, afterwards United States District Judge for 
Connecticut. 

Lydia Maria Child had won distinction in literature 
when, in 1834, she issued her "Appeal in behalf of 
that class of Americans called Africans." This ad- 
mirable production, replete with apposite facts, graph- 
ic sketches, and pathetic exhortations for justice and 
mercy to a proscribed race, at once became the text- 
book of the advocates of the slave. 

Early in the struggle Angelina and Sarah Grimke, 
cultivated w^omen of Southern birth, delivered Anti- 
slavery addresses in the Eastern States that elicited 
high encomiums, while the beautiful life of Lucretia 
Mott, even to its golden sunset, was adorned by her 
good works for the negro race. 

One of the early Anti-slavery orators was Lucy 
Stone. She is now the principal editor of the Wo?)i- 



G8 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

an's Journal^ in Boston. Miss Stone was born in 
AYest Brookfield, in 1818, was educated at Oberlin 
College, and ultimately became a lecturer in the Anti- 
slavery cause. She was an eloquent speaker, and 
charmed her audiences. One evening, in western 
New York, I took a democratic lawyer to hear her. 
As we were leaving the hall at the close of the meet- 
ing my friend turned towards the platform where 
Miss Stone was still standing and said, in a dazed sort 
of Avay : " Little lady, I do not believe in your doc- 
trines, but God made vou an orator." 

I merely glance at Mrs. Stowe's " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." It gave the Anti-slavery cause an impulse 
that never subsided until the Thirteenth Amendment 
was engrafted upon the Constitution. One of my 
cherished memories is the occasional gli]npses I 
caught at Walnut Hills of Harriet Beecher, ere she 
was the wife of my learned, witty, and rather sarcas- 
tic teacher, the Eeverend Dr. Calvin E. Stowe. 

The celebrity in this country and Europe of two 
women in another department has thrown somewhat 
into the shade the distinguished service they rendered 
to the slave in the four stormy years preceding the 
war and in the four 3'ears while the sanguinary con- 
flict was waged in the field. I refer to Elizabeth 
Cadv Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. 

The negro himself was an important element in 
the struggle for emancipation. The representative 
man of the race in this country, their most eloquent 
orator and distinguished leader was, and is, Frederick 
Douglass. Born in slavery, he was indebted for per- 
sonal freedom to his own stern purpose, clear eye. 



ULTRA REFORMERS. 69 

fleet foot, and brave heart ; and he reached his high 
position among his fellow-citizens mainly by his own 
exertions. Looking down the long vista of the past, 
I recognize the fine presence of Robert Purvis, of 
Philadelphia, a colored gentleman of rare excellence, 
Avho during the third of a century previous to eman- 
cipation was the wise champion of his brethren in 
bondage. 

As reformers in all ages, when fighting their l^at- 
tles against desperate odds, have been wont to be in- 
discriminate in their censures, so was it with the early 
Abolitionists (especially those of the Poston type). 
Ultimately the Anti-slavery men were divided into 
two classes, known as the Poston school and the Xew 
York school ; the former very radical, the latter 
rather conservative. In a few years the Postonian 
platform broadened till it covered many evils besides 
slavery ; and in the opinion of the Kew York leaders 
their brethren of the Trimountain City became some- 
what loose in their doctrines and fanatical in their 
operations. I pass no judgment upon the merits of 
this feud. 

I would not disparage Abolitionists of any type. 
The ultras of the Postonian school were charged with 
fanaticism in the stages of the contest previous to 
the formation of the Eepublican party. One of the 
last of their conventions that I saw was in Poston 
before the war. There was a representative array 
on the front seat, near the platform. First Avas Gar- 
rison, liis countenance calling to mind the pictures of 
the prophet Isaiah in a rapt mood ; next was the fine 
Eoman head of AVendell Phillips ; at his right was 



TO KANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

Father Lampson, so called, a crazy loon— liis hair and 
flowing beard as white as the driven snow. Lampson 
always dressed in pure white, froiji head to foot, even 
including the shoes. He was the inventor of a val- 
uable scythe-snath, and invariably carried a snath in 
his hand. His forte was selling his wares on secular 
days and disturbing religious meetings on Sundays. 
^^ext to Lampson sat Edmund Quincy, high born and 
vv^ealthy, the son of tlie famous President Quincy. 
!N"ext to Quincy was Abigail Folsom, another lunatic, 
with a shock of unkempt hair reaching down to her 
waist. At her right was George W. Mellen, clad in 
the military costume of the Eevolution, and fancying 
himself to be General Washington, because he was 
named after him. Poor Mellen died in an asylum 
for the insane. Well, it is no wonder. The terrible 
strain put upon the human intellect in those old Anti- 
slavery days turned some light-headed persons' brains. 
I must add that high over these motley assemblages 
rose the inspiring strains of the celebrated Hutchin- 
son family. 

Parker Pillsbury, an Anti- slavery leader, pungent 
on the platform and in the press, with a rich vein of 
humor in his composition, told me that he made a 
stum]->ing tour in New Hampshire with Stephen S. 
Foster, and that pretty much all his time was con- 
sumed in getting Foster bailed out of jail for inter- 
fering in religious meetings in his peculiar style. 
Foster vrould sometimes advance up the aisle during 
the sermon and call the minister a wolf in sheep's 
clothing, whereupon the deacons would carry him 
out, Foster emerging from the scuffle minus one or 



FANATICS AND LUNATICS. 71 

two of his coat-tails. He thought he was a second 
George Fox. 

Cliaiies C. Burleigh, brother of William II., the 
poet and journalist, was a vehement orator of rare 
logical gifts. He traversed the country delivering 
Anti-slavery lectures. He dressed like a tramp. In 
the Anti-slavery office at New York we once tore a 
shabby coat off his shoulders, vowing that he should 
not represent the society in such a vile garb. John G. 
Whittier took a hand in this performance. At a later 
day we were to celebrate at Fall River, in the month 
of August, the anniversary of West India Emancipa- 
tion. Burleigh was to be one of the speakers, the 
member of Congress for that district was to preside, 
and Bev. Dr. William Ellery Channing and a dis- 
tinguished company from Newport were to attend. 
Burleigh came the day previous, w^earing white duck 
trousers, that looked as if they had not dropped in 
at a laundry during the summer, and an out-at-the- 
elbows coat, and other abominable garments to match. 
We arranged with a tailor to carry off Burleigh's 
clothes in the night while he slept, and to leave a new 
suit in his bedroom. The following day Burleigh ap- 
peared in fresh pepper-and-salt habiliments, and de- 
livered a speech that elicited encomiums from Dr. 
Channing. 

During the war and the early stage of reconstruc- 
tion Mr. Garrison took a more sensible and practical 
view of the situation than Mr. Phillips did. While a 
million and a half of armed men were fighting on a 
hundred battle-fields about slavery, and especially 
after the adoption of the Thirteenth Constitutional 



72 EAXDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

Amendment, Garrison did not see the utility of keep- 
ing up the old American Anti-slavery society. So 
sharp was tlie collision between tliese two leaders on 
this and cognate points that they did not speak to 
each other for many months. 

While describing eccentric men, mostly of Massa- 
chusetts, this may be a suitable place to dispose of 
Lord Timothy Dexter. About fifty years ago I was 
riding with Whittier in the Vv'esterly suburbs of New- 
bur3q3ort, when we came upon the old mansion once 
occupied by that eccentric shi])ping merchant known 
as Lord Timothy Dexter. Though he had then been 
dead thirty years, his celebrity, as one of the oddest 
of Yankees, still lingered in New England. Tlie for- 
mer lordly dwelling had, I think, degenerated into an 
inn, but it yet bore the Dexter impress. A wide pi- 
azza ran along the front, whose roof bore up life-size 
statues of Washington, Franklin, Adams, Hancock, 
and other revolutionary heroes, arrayed in gaudy and 
fantastic costumes. In his youth Dexter was very 
poor; in later years he became quite rich. In my 
boyhood I heard many queer stories about this strange 
person, whom some called a dupe and some a devil. 
He was about to send a vessel to the West Indies, and 
was searching for freight. A practical joker advised 
him to load her with warming-pans. He did, and 
when the cargo reached the tropics, it sold for an 
enormous price. The sugar-planters took off the per- 
forated lids of the Vv^arming-pans and'^sed them to 
skim the caldrons where the cane was boiling, and 
they em])loyed the pans themselves, Avith their long 
handles, to ladle out the contents of the caldrons. 



LOED TIMOTHY DEXTER. 73 

This successful venture gave Dexter his first start 
towards wealth. This peculiar mortal erected a tomb 
in his garden. A coffin was within the mausoleum. 
At fixed hours in the day he would lie in the cofiln, 
when a servant would knoclv at the portal of the tomb 
and say, '• Lord I'imothy Dexter ! Lord Timothy Dex- 
ter ! arise and come to judgment !'' Dexter would 
then get out of the coffin, repair to the house, and 
gravely eat his dinner. He published a sarcastic book, 
which he entitled, " A Pickle for the Knowing Ones." 
I have seen it, but do not remember precisely its con- 
tents. The peculiar feature of the production was 
that from end to end there was not a punctuation 
point of any kind ; but in an appendix he printed sev- 
eral pages made up exclusively of points of every sort, 
telling his readers to sift them into the text of the 
book to suit themselves. But enough of this eccen- 
tric Lord Timothv. 

ft/ 

4 



CHAPTER IX. 

Tour in Europe in 1840.— Current Description of Author's Travels. 
— The Main Object of the Tour. — World's Anti-slavery Con- 
vention in London. — Leading Members. — Distinguished Women. 
— na3'don'8 Large Painting of the Convention; his Anecdote 
of the L'on Duke. — House of Peers. — Scotch Church Debate. — 
Brougham Speaks. — Melbourne, the Premier. — Lord Lyndhurst, 
a Boston-born Boy. — Wellington Speaks on an Irish Question.^ 
Earl Grey Enters.— The Reform Bill of 1832.— Grey's Warning 
to the Peers to Set their Houses in Order. — Sydney Smith and 
Dame Partington. — Gorgeous Pageant at the Funeral of Earl 
Durham, Son-in-law of Grey, and the Persecuted Ex-Governor 
of Canada. 

I TOOK ship for Europe on May 12, 1840. I was 
nnited in marriage, on May 1, 181:0, with Elizabeth 
Cady, of Johnstown, IST. Y., daughter of Daniel Cady, 
then a leader of the New York Bar. The main ob- 
ject of my trip was to attend a convention in London 
for the promotion of the Anti-slavery cause through- 
out the world. 

On June 3, 1810, we first approached London from 
the west, striking the Thames at Beading. To see 
old Father Thames had been my day-dream in life's 
morning march, when my bosom was young. And 
here it dazzled my eyes ! As we neared the metrop- 
olis, we discovered a lofty object that floated on a sea 
of fog and smoke. It was the dome of St. Paul's, 
lifting its gilded cross high above the dark canopy 
that hovers over London so much of the year. 



THE LONDON CONVENTION. 75 

I shall say little in this book of my travels. While 
in Europe, I wrote letters to the New York Ameri- 
can^ describing my tour, under the caption of " For- 
eign Kambles," signed '' Eambler." Towards the close 
a few bore the signature of " Manhattan." They ex- 
tended from July, 1840, to Feburary, 1841. Portions 
of them were widely copied. In the winter of 1848- 
49 I published a long series of numbers in the Na- 
tional Era., of Washington, a Free-soil paper, edited 
by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, an accomplished scholar, whose 
press had been thrown years before into the river at 
Cincinnati. Tliey w^ere entitled, " Sketches of Ke- 
forms and Reformers in Great Britain and Ireland." 
After retrenchments and additions they were issued, 
in 1849, in a volume of four hundred pages, bearing 
the same title, in IS'ew York and London, bv John 
Wiley. Portions were translated and printed in Paris. 
At a later date a second edition was issued by Charles 
Scribner. Every reform that has since been carried 
throuffh Parliament for Great Britain and Ireland 
was foreshadowed in those numbers of the Era and 
in that volume. 

The Anti-slavery Convention met in London in 
June, 1840. Thomas Clarkson, the Abolition patri- 
arch, Avas president. James G. Birney was one of the 
vice-presidents, and I was honored with a seat among 
the secretaries. Many nations were represented. I 
w^ill name a few of the most distinguished who took 
part in the proceedings, viz. : The Duke of Sussex, 
uncle to the queen ; Lord Brougham ; Lord Morpeth, 
then Chief -secretary for Ireland ; Daniel O'Connell ; 
Guizot, the French Minister at the Court of St. James ; 



76 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

Dr. Liishington ; Dr. Bo wring ; Thomas Campbell, the 
poet ; Samuel Gurney, the great Quaker banker ; 
Joseph Sturge ; Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton ; Sir Earcl- 
ley Wilmot ; Sir C. Buller ; the Rt. Hon. C. P. Vil- 
liers, Edward Baines, and many other Parliamentary 
leaders ; Rev. John Angell James, Rev. Dr. Cox, Rev. 
Thomas Binney, Rev. Dr. Wardlaw, and a long list 
of clergymen of various denominations ; and two 
young men then little known — John Bright and Will- 
iam E. Forster. The cause of Abolition Avore gold 
slippers in England. The Duchess of Sutherland, 
Mistress of the Robes; the Duchess of Brunswick; 
Lady Byron, widow of the poet ; Elizabeth Fry, Mary 
Ilowitt, Amelia Opie, Lady Lovelace, Elizabeth Pease, 
and several other female celebrities smiled upon the 
convention. The proceedings were reported in a vol- 
ume of six hundred pages. 

While Thomas Clarkson was delivering the opening 
address of the Anti-slavery Convention, I noticed at 
my elbow a gentleman with pale cheeks and keen 
eyes, wearing a silk capote cut short in the skirts, 
and a brigand cap that towered high over the crani- 
um, who seemed to be sketching the outhnes of the 
convention. This was Benjamin R. Ilaydon, the 
famous painter. Why artists affect this fantastic 
style of costume when at work, I never could under- 
stand. I have seen newspaper reporters who wore 
the brigand cap, but they were usually too " short " 
to sport a long silk capote. Ilaydon executed a large 
painting of the prominent members of the conven- 
tion, which now hangs in the National Portrait Gal- 
lery, While employed on this picture he told me 



HAYDON, THE GEEAT PAINTER, 77 



many anecdotes of Wellington, Grey, Brougham, Eus- 
sell, and other eminent statesmen who had adorned 
his historic canvas. I recall this of the Iron Duke. 
Wellington said he had sat about two hundred times 
for his portrait since Waterloo, and probably as 
many for miniatures and busts. He told Haydon he 
had rather storm a fort than sit to an artist. Hay- 
don had painted him just previous to this interview. 
One day, during a sitting, the old soldier fell asleep 
in his chair, and continued so a long time. The art- 
ist employed the occasion to bestow some touches of 
the pencil on the dress of his illustrious subject. Time 
being precious, hovrever, and wishing to resume the 
coloring of his features, he cried out in a loud tone, 
"I hope the light don't hurt your grace's eyes'^" 
Wellington roused up as suddenly as if he had been 
caught napping on the field of battle, and replied, 
" Oh, no ! I have faced too much fire for that !" and, 
as the painter expressed it, " the old fellow stared at 
the light with the eye of an eagle." 

Poor Haydon ! he had the infirmities of genius. 
He died by his own hand in 1846. 

A debate on the famous Scotch Presbyterian cpies- 
tion (then in a critical condition, and which ultimate- 
ly rent that powerful Churcli asunder) was to occur 
in the House of Peers. I went to the House in com- 
pany with a Birmingham law3^er, and asked the door- 
keeper for admission to the gallery. He said it was 
full. The offer of a silver crown did not reverse his 
decision. My Birmingham comjianion counselled a 
retreat. I took my card and addressed it to Lord 
Brougham, writing thereon that I was Secretary of 



To KANDOM EICCOLLECTIONS. 

the World's Anti-slavery Convention, from New York, 
and would be happy if he would admit me and a 
friend to the gallery to hear the pending debate. The 
lawyer and the doorkeeper were astounded at my au- 
dacity. " I think I know my man," was my response. 
The card was taken in, and in a minute the flunky re- 
turned, bowing nearly to the floor. We were ushered 
into the space allotted to the Commons when sum- 
moned to the bar of the Peers. We were the sole 
occu]Mnts. Lordly eyes were turned upon us, and a 
buzzing bevy of peeresses from behind a curtain craned 
their necks, wondering probably who on earth we 
were. Earl Dalhousie, an elder in the Scotch Church, 
was closing a speech. Brougham arose. For twenty 
minutes the lawyer, statesman, and orator whose name 
and fame were the property of mankind rolled off so- 
norous periods on the subject under debate. He then 
crossed the chamber in front of where we were sit- 
ting, and made a bow, as much as to say, " What do 
you think of that ?" He was, perhaps, the vainest 
man in England. The premier. Lord Melbourne, de- 
livered the last speech. He was majestic in personal 
appearance, elegantly dressed, and had the fatherl}'' 
aspect which fitted him to act as a sort of a guardian 
to the youthful queen. But what an orator ! His 
speech was clumsy and slipshod in the extreme. 

I will recall a few famous figures in the scarlet 
chamber. The homely Yankee face of Lord Lynd- 
hurst, with a "calculating" shrewdness in his eye, 
and lips firmly set under an aquiline nose, a heavy 
brow, and a slouched hat that a Bowery boy would 
hardly have picked up, was pointed out side l)y side 



WELLINGTON. — LYNDHURST. 79 

with the snowy locks, long, narrow head, and cres- 
cent-like visage of the illustrious chief of AYaterloo. 
Crouching in his seat Wellington looked short, but 
w^hen he stood up he seemed tall. The Iron Duke 
ran much to legrs. Ex-chancellor Lyndlmrst was a 
Boston-born lad. When his father, John Copley, w^as 
painting in London the famous picture of the death 
of Chatham, now hanging in the National Gallery, 
he could not have imagined that his New England 
boy would rise to be one of the leading lawyers and 
debaters in the House wdiere the great William Pitt 
fell. I heard Wellington deliver a short speech one 
night, if it could be called a speech. Several hours 
had been spent in discussing an Irish question. The 
duke rose wp. He occuj^ied ten minutes in stating 
the conclusions he had reached on the thorny subject. 
He made no gestures, he argued nothing, but stood 
as straight and stiff as a musket, and talked in a low 
voice. But everybody in the chamber, peers and spec- 
tators, listened carefully to each word uttered by the 
soldier who overthrew the first Napoleon. 

Suddenly all eyes are turned towards a tall, slender 
man, his brow silvered by age, who is just entering 
the chamber leaning on the arm of one much young- 
er. As he approaches the ministerial bench several 
lords rise and ])ay him marked deference. Even 
Brougham, who is at cross-purposes with Melbourne, 
the premier, comes trippingly forward from the cor- 
ner wdiere he is scowling, and greets him w^armly ; 
while Lyndhurst, Wellington, and two or three other 
Tory noblemen lift their hats and bow. This is Charles 
Earl Grey, now in his seventy-seventh year, who, ai 



80 EANDOM KECOLL?:CTI0NS. 

premier, with tlie aid of Brougham, carried the Re- 
form Bill of 1832 through tlic House of Peers; or 
rather, as might be more fittingly said, drove it over 
tiie House of Peers/ Seating himself, the venerable 
patrician looked around with the loftv bearing of 
one accustomed to take the lead among great minds. 
More than half a century before this Charles Grey, 
then in the Commons, was the youngest member of 
the famous committee that managed the impeachment 
of Warren Hastings. The sparkling eulogium of Grey 
in Macaulay's brilliant description of that event in 
the EcUnlurgh Review of October, 1841, will occur to 
the reader. 

Earl Grey's solemn admonition to the House of 
Lords in 1832, not to reject the Eeform Bill that had 
twice passed the Commons and been thrown out by 
the Lords, was a model of elocjuence worthy of the 
best days of Greece or Rome. Coming from an old 
nobleman like him, it was more influential than 
Brougham's argument and closing appeal to the 
Peers ''on his bended knees" to pass the measure, 
and more effective than the ritUcule poured on the 
hostile lords by Sydney Smith in his story of Dame 
Partington's unsuccessful conflict with the Atlantic 
Ocean in the terrible storm at Sidmouth. In his last 
speech on that gloomy night when the fate of the 
British empire hung on his lips, Grey said to the 
Peers : " Though I am proud of the ancient rank to 
which we in common belong, and would peril much 
to save it from ruin, yet if your lordships are deter- 
mined to reject this bill, and throw it scornfully back 
in the face of an aroused and indignant ]->eople, tlien 



GEEY, — BROUGHAM. — DURHAM. 81 

I warn you to set your houses in order, for your hour 
has come !" The threat of Grey was more potent 
than the logic of Brougham or tlie sarcasm of Smith. 
The bill was passed. The serf rose up a man, and 
the man stei)ped forth an elector. 

In August, ISIO, I met Earl Grey at the funeral of 
his son-in law, Earl Durham, who had recently re- 
turned from Canada and died of mortification because 
of his unsuccessful management of the affairs of that 
then turbulent colony. The sad spectacle was at the 
country-seat of the deceased nobleman, near the city 
that l)ore his name. The scene was unusually grand. 
Being the guest of the Mayor of Durham, and an 
American, 1 had a good opportunity for contemplat- 
ing the ceremonies. I was conducted by " His Wor- 
ship," who glistened in a scarlet robe and gold chain, 
throuo-h the stately edifice of the earl to the little 

CD i' 

room, dimly lighted by wax candles five feet long, 
where lay the body, guarded by four mutes, from 
whose shoulders drooped black cloaks of the mediceval 
period. One hundred of the tenantry of the rich peer 
were boisterously feasting in the kitchen on solids 
and liquids of refreshing varieties. A numerous as- 
semblage of Whig noblemen, members of Parliament, 
and untitled people assisted in the solemn pageant, 
for Durham was a leader of the Liberals and the 
liope of the rising Radicals. From the window of 
the chamber where lay his stricken daughter Earl 
Grey watched the long procession that bore the re- 
mains of his persecuted son-in-law through the adja- 
cent groves to the place of interment. 



CHAPTER X. 

The House of Commons. — Debate on Canada. — Macaulay's Speech. 
— Lord John Russell. — The Lions of the House. — O'Connell 
Aims a Slinging Arrow at Disraeli, the Future Beaconsfield.— 
Stanley, the Inchoate Earl Derby, Collides with Howick, Son and 
Heir of Earl Grey.— Sir Robert Peel Compared with Clay, Cal- 
houn, and Webster. — Gladstone, "The Rising Hope of the 
Stern and Unbending Tories." — Talfourd. — Bulwer's Dandy 
Dress. — Anecdote of Brougham and Buxton. — Clarkson's De- 
scription of Wilberforce's Oratory. — ]\ranners in the English 
Commons and the American Congress Compared. — The English- 
man's H.— Oratory in America and Great Britain.— American 
Snobbery.— Joseph H. Choate and "William E. Forster before 
the Union League Club. — Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, Sergeant 
Ballantyne, and Matthew Arnold Facing American Audiences. — 
How they Appeared. 

In dealing with the House of Commons I shall 
glance only at a few of the celebrated members, who 
are best known in America. 

I entered the Commons to hear a discussion con- 
cerning Canada, just then on the verge of a rebel- 
lion. I was just seated when from under the gallery 
there poured a stream of words, pitched in a monoto- 
nous key, sparkling with metaphors. The House had 
been rather thin, when instantly the doors began to 
slam, tidings having passed out that Macaulay was 
up. His address reminded me of his essays in the 
Edinburgh Eevievj. Lord John Russell, colonial sec- 
retary, and Whig leader in the Commons, closed the 
debate. He Avas a better orator than Melbourne, but 



O'CONNELL, — DISRAELI. — PEEL. 83 

our House of Representatives would have listened to 
him impatiently. 

One of the lions of the House was Daniel O'Con^ 
nell. In heated controversy he was as much dreaded 
by opponents as was John Quincy Adams in our Con- 
gress. I speak more particularly of the Irish orator 
in another place. Directly across the floor from 
O'Connell we recognized the curly locks and flashing 
eyes of Benjamin Disraeli, the undeveloped Beacons- 
field. He was then inclined to be ashamed of his 
Hebrew origin. Hence the keenness of the sting of 
O'Conneirs arrow, who, in a recent exchange of epi- 
thets during a violent quarrel, declared that Disraeli 
was the lineal descendant of the im])cnitent thief that 
reviled Jesus on the Cross. 

Lord Stanley, known in later times as Earl Derby, 
the Premier, was the most ra])id speaker I ever heard. 
Dashing, bold, sarcastic, he was the Joachim Murat 
of debate. As secretary of the colonies, in 1834, he 
carried through the Commons the bill for the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the West Indies. Previous to 18-iO 
he had turned to be a Tory, and followed Sir Pobert 
Peel. I witnessed a sharp collision between Stanley 
and Lord Ho wick, better known in America as the 
second Earl Grey. The conflict was personal and 
bitter. The fiery and ill-tempered attack of Stanley 
was admirably foiled by the cool, caustic reply of 
Howick. 

Sir Robert Peel was then at the summit of his rep- 
utation as a Parliamentary leader. I heard him on 
the Irish registration bill, a measure that evoked hot 
blood and fervid oratory. Thous:h Sir Robert had 

«,' CD 



84 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

not the glowing rhetoric of our Cla}^, nor the nervous 
logic of Calhoun, nor the overshadowing majesty of 
"Webster, his speech was cogent, lucid, dignified, re- 
markably courteous towards opponents, and displayed 
that rare tact which enabled him to hold together 
what, at that juncture, was an incongruous and fac- 
tious party. Near him sat William Ewart Gladstone, 
a cold, serene, haughty, and intensely ambitious scliol- 
ar and orator, whom Macaulay had described, in the 
Edhiburgli Review of the previous year, as "a young 
man of unblemished character and distinguished par- 
liamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and 
unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and muti- 
nousl}^, a leader (Peel) whose experience and eloquence 
are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper 
and moderate opinions they abhor." This was a faith- 
ful portrait of the author of a bigoted book in favor 
of the extremest doctrines of the advocates of a 
union of Clmrch and State, Avhich Macaulav was 
caustically criticising in the Whig Quarterly. AVho 
could then have dreamed that this " rising hope of 
the stern and unbending Tories" would turn with 
the tide and aid in rej^ealing the Corn Laws, and, as 
premier, disestablish the Irish Church and carry the 
right of suffrage almost up to the American standard, 
and denounce in acrimonious terms old Liberals ^vho 
had often served in his cabinets, because they would 
not accept without question a personal scheme, which 
even he could not clearly explain, for bestowing an 
independent parliament on the land of Emmet and 
O'Connell "i 
There were then in the Commons four authors 



LYTTON. — BUXTON. — BKOUGHAM. 85 

whose writings were popular in America, viz., Ma- 
caulay, Disraeli, Thomas Noon Talfourd, and Ed- 
ward Lytton Bulwer. Plaving read their w^orks at 
home, I took pains to hear them in the national fo- 
rum. I have touched upon the three lii'st named, and 
will briefly refer to Bulwer, a Liberal member, then 
famous as a novelist and dramatist, and in subsequent 
years as a conservative peer, bearing the title of Lord 
Lytton. "When I saw him he appeare:! to be some- 
thing of a dand}^ Tall, with an Israelitish curve to 
a long nose, he was dressed at the very height of the 
fashion. There w^as a dash of dudism in his man- 
ners, his cut-away brown coat, w'hite-duck trousers, 
and green-silk cravat. I was rather surprised to hear 
such extreme radicalism from such aristocratic lips. 
But though nothing else could have been logically 
expected from the author of " Paul Clifford," " Eugene 
Aram," and the " Lady of Lyons," the hue of Bul- 
wer's politics, whether he shone as a liberal Common- 
er or a Tory lord, w^as as easily changed as the color 
of his cravats. 

Sir Thomas Fovrell Buxton w^as made a baronet in 
1840, in return for services in Parliament in the cause 
of West India emancipation. This anecdote w^as told 
to me by one of his family : In the year 1824, wiien 
Buxton and Brougham w^ere in the Commons, some 
petitions were confided to them for the abolition of 
slavery in the West India Colonies. On consultation 
they agreed to submit a motion for the amelioration 
of slavery. Buxton was to make the motion and 
Brougham to support him. Due notice w^as given, 
and the West India interest was on the g^ui vive for 



S6 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

opposition. A tempest was anticipated. Buxton was 
apprehensive he sliould be unceremoniously coughed 
and scraped down. The day came. Just as Buxton 
was about to lift his majestic form— he was six feet 
six inches high — Brougham whispered to him, " I will 
cheer you while you are speaking, and you must do 
the same for me.'''' " Agreed," responded the agitated 
brewer, as he rose and commenced spealiing amid 
evident signs of impatience on the part of many 
Commoners. A storm was brewing, but Brougham 
cried, " Hear ! Hear ! ! Hear ! ! !" with all his might, 
and clapped and stamped so lustily that the House 
was struck with amazement, thought he was crazy, 
and permitted Buxton to conclude his speech without 
much interruption. In an instant Brougham was on 
his feet, his eye flashing fire, and his hair erect with 
excitement. Members cried, " Divide ! Divide !" in 
stentorian tones. " Harry the Commoner " stood un- 
moved as a rock. When silence was restored he went 
forward, kindling with his theme, rolling out splendid 
thoughts and glowing illustrations, which held the 
House in awe. The shouts of " Hear ! Hear ! ! Hear ! ! !" 
from Buxton became contagious, and at the close of 
his speech Brougham sat down amid rounds of ap- 
plause. 

Thomas Clarkson's unique mansion, near Ipswich, 
was erected in the same year that Columbus discov- 
ered America. It had its moat and drawbridge, the 
water in the former fragrant with pond-lilies, and the 
railing of the latter entwined with creeping-roses. 
With pride glistening in his eye he showed me the 
original records of the first society — formed by him 



CLARKSON. — FOX. — WILBERFORCE. 87 

and William Wilberforce and their associates, in 1786, 
for the abolition of the African slave-trade. He 
gave racy anecdotes and sketches of illustrious men 
whom he had known and wrought with in that cause, 
and spoke particularly of Wilberforce, the younger 
Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sharpe, Windham, Bishop Porteus, 
and others of the great dead among his coadjutors, 
and of Brougham, Buxton, and O'Connell, with whom 
he had toiled in the later struggles to overthrow sla- 
very in the West Indies. I asked him about the oratory 
of Fox, and if Mr. Wilberforce was a good speaker in 
Parliament, telling him that in America it was gen- 
erally believed that Wilberforce was not a command- 
ing figure in the Commons. The cheek of the patri- 
arch glowed with enthusiasm as he replied that Fox 
was terrible in debate, attacking his enemies in a stjde 
that sometimes bordered on ferocity. He feared noth- 
ing ; but, though a lion on the floor, was as mild as a 
lamb in private intercourse. In response to my in- 
quiry concerning Wilberforce, he drew himself up to 
full height, and exclaimed, " Mr. Wilberforce not an 
orator! He was one of the most eloquent men in 
Parliament. His voice was as musical as a flute, and 
his choice words followed each other with a regular- 
ity and beauty that fell on the ear like the swells of 
an organ." I asked if he was not rather diminutive 
in person. " Yes," said Mr. Clarkson, " but his ear- 
nestness and pathos, and the magnitude of his theme 
when exposing the evils of the slave-trade made him 
look large in debate." 

When I was in England the manners of the House 
of Commons were often rude and boisterous. Two or 



88 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

three times I witnessed scenes that would have befit- 
ted the spectators at a prize-ring better tlian the mem- 
bers of a legislative assembly. Such cheers, yells, 
hisses, groans ! Sucli vituperation and personal abuse, 
for which representatives in Congress would have been 
required to promptly apologize on pain of expulsion ! 
I have seen some of the most angry collisions that 
ever occurred in our Senate and House. They were 
perilous, and came near to bloodshed ; but they were 
less coarse and noisy than those I beheld in Parlia- 
ment. Ours were the quarrels of inflamed gentlemen. 
Theirs were the conflicts of heated bullies. Perhaps 
the House of Commons has improved in late years, 
but those rude outbreaks during the recent debates 
on Home Rule do not tend to prove it. American 
congressmen do not scrape an opponent down by shuf- 
fling tlieir feet, nor silence him by concerted cough- 
ing, nor drown his voice by cries of " Divide ! Divide !" 
" Oh ! Ah !" nor drive him to his seat by ironical 
cheers, nor jeer him by affected yells of " Hear I Hear !" 
A congressman might kill a colleague in a duel for 
words spoken in debate, or even shoot him, or plunge 
a knife into his abdomen in an encounter in the lob- 
by, but he would scorn to bellow him down like a 
bull. He prefers to leave that style of argument to 
the members of a body which has been called " An 
Assembly of the First Gentlemen in Europe." 

The American who would thorouo;hlv master the 
utterance of tlie English nation, whether in Parlia- 
ment, at the bar, in the puljiit, on the platform, or in 
the streets, must pause and consider the letter h. It 
modifies their language, and is to them the key of 



BRITISH AND AMEKICAX OUATOKY. SO 

the alpliabet. He who sujiposes that the i^eculiaritj 
in this regard relates only to the common people is 
quite mistaken ; it crops out not infrequently in per- 
sons of the higher types, and especially the middle class. 

The facility of the average Englishman in drop- 
ping out and picking up the A was brought vividly 
before me on the second dav I was in the kino-dom. 
I present it as a sparkling drop from " the well of 
English nndefiled/' I was on the coach between Ex- 
eter and Bath, with a seat by the driver's side, I 
caught sight of a great edifice in ruins on a distant 
hill. It was ni}^ first ruin in the Old World, and I 
wished to make as much of it as possible. I eagerly 
asked the coachman what it was. " Sir," said he, 
" that is Glastonbury habbey. In the reign of King 
'Enry the Heighth, the hold habbot rebelled, and the 
king 'ung 'im hon a gallows, hand then cut hoff 'is 
'ead, and confiscated 'is lands." Telling the coach- 
man that I had just landed from America, he kindly 
gave me an extra stop of fifteen minutes to glance at 
the ruins of the famous abbey, which cover many 
acres, and Avhere moulder the bones of renowned 
bishops and princes, whose histor}^ I had read in 
Hume, or 'Ume, as John Bull would call him. 

While in England, Scotland, and Ireland, I heard 
much public speaking in Parliament, at the bar, in the 
pulpit, and on the platform from persons of all types. 
It is only echoing the general opinion to say that this 
foreign oratory was far inferior to ours. The Eng- 
lish specimens could hardly have heen Avorse. Such 
hesitating, hemming, hawing, stammering, stuttering, 
stumbling! They cultivate this style, and think it 



00 KAXDOM KECOLLECTIOXS. 

aristocratic. While they seem to reverence their 
sleezy diction and slipshod utterance as if it were a 
part of the British Constitution, to other nations it 
appears not merely contemptible, but makes their or- 
ators a laughing-stock. Of course^ I met a great many 
exceptions to this sweeping rule. 

On the other hand, not only in the matter of ora- 
tory, but in everything else, the British turn uj3 their 
noses at us. It is no wonder. The snobbery and ser- 
vility of our tourists in that country, and of some of 
our ministers to the Court of St. James, have con- 
firmed them in their fancied superiority over the 
Americans. Indeed, our toadyism has reached a point 
where it is deemed unfashionable to give American 
names even to our hotels, and therefore we call them 
after some of the most infamous characters in British 
history. 

Some of our citizens can recall a scene that enabled 
them to compare American with English orators. I 
refer to the reception given by the Union League Club, 
of 'New York, to the Eight Honorable "W, E. Forster, 
for his steady advocacy of the Union cause in the 
House of Commons during the Civil War, Arrayed 
in a dress coat and white cravat which Beau Brummel 
or George IV. would have envied, Joseph H. Choate, 
the president of the club, rained down for half an 
hour upon Mr. Forster a brilliant shower of encomi- 
ums that made the plainly dressed semi-Quaker quail. 
In matter and manner it was one of Choate's happy 
efforts, while Forster's response 'was thoroughly Eng- 
lish in style and sentiment. The contrast between 
the two performances Avas striking and instructive. 



STANLEY. FAKKAR. BALLANTYNE. AKNOLD. 1 

Even fresher illustrations of the superiority herein 
asserted will occur to those who listened in this coun- 
try to Dean Stanley, Canon Farrar, Sergeant Ballan- 
tyne, and Matthew Arnold. The two distinguished 
divines utterly failed to sustain the rejuitation as 
jDulpit orators which they brought here ; the learned 
lawyer hopelessly broke do^vn when confronting his 
first American audience; and the famous essayist, 
who lectured for years with great edat in his native 
land, had to take lessons in elocution after reaching- 
our shores before, on his own admission, he felt com- 
petent to face a trans-Atlantic assembly. 



CHAPTER XI. 

"Westminster Hall. — The Courts: Lords Cottenham, Denmau, and 
Abinger, Sir Frederick Pollock, and other Members of the 
Bench and Bar. — In France.— Deputy Isambert and Advocate 
Crcmieux. — The Great Napoleon's Mausoleum in Preparation 
on the Banks of the Seine. — Napoleon, "the Pretender," Seized 
while Raising a Rebellion at Boulogne. — Return to England. — 
London in a Fog. — William the Conqueror and Battle Abbey. — 
Runnymcde and Magna Charta. — Bosworth Field and Richard 
III. — Cromwell's Schoolhouse, Mansion, and Farm. —Judge 
Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes. — William III. and the Battle 
of the Boyne.— Old Sarum, the Model Rotten Borough. — The 
Chartists and their Creed. — Main Cause of their Failure. 

I ENTERED the great Hall of William Eufus, in West- 
minster, whose old oaken arches had witnessed the 
crowning of many kings, the trial of Charles I., the 
expulsion of the Eump Parliament by Cromwell, and 
the bursts of eloquence of Burke and Sheridan on the 
arraignment of Warren Hastings for high crimes and 
misdemeanors, and I vras spellbound as I paced its 
stone floor, worn by the footsteps of centuries. I 
visited the apartments where the courts were in ses- 
sion. There sat Lord Chancellor Cottenham, Chief- 
Justice Denman, of the Queen's Bench, Lord Abinger, 
of the Exchequer, better known to the bar in Amer- 
ica as Sir James Scarlett. Of course I was deeply 
interested in witnessing the proceedings of tribunals 
that gave law to so large a part of Christendom, and 
whose decisions are daily cited in the courts of the 



EXGLISn JUDGES AND LAWYERS. 93 

United States. I had heard a speech from Lord Cot- 
tenham in the Peers. I no'^v listened to arguments 
in the courts from Sir Frederick Pollock, Sergeant 
Talfourd, and Sir AVilliam Follett, leaders of the bar. 
In matter they were able ; in manner bad. 

I was abroad till January, ISll. I delivered thirty 
or forty speeches in Great Britain and Ireland, and 
attended two conferences in France. I had come 
from the land of mobs, wdiere the press, with few ex- 
ceptions, delighted to misrepresent Abolitionists. It 
seemxcd a pleasant change to find myself introduced 
to audiences hj members of Parliament, fellows of 
the uniyersities, lord mayors of cities, peers of the 
realm, bishops of the Establishment, and the manager 
of the Edinhurgh Review^ and then to see my speech- 
es fully and fairly reported in the newspapers. I 
took courage, and dared to say in the words of a Rad- 
ical rhymer : 

" TIjere's a good lime coming, 
A good time coming; 
We may not live to see tlie day, 
But Earth will glisten in the ray 
Of the good time coming; 
Wait a little longer." 

I lived to see the day. 

While in France, in the summer of IS-tO, I attend- 
ed two im]3ortant Anti-slavery conferences in Paris. 
This was a part of my object in going to Europe. 
These conferences were participated in by M. Isam- 
bert, a prominent member of the Chamber of Depu- 
ties, and M. Cremieux, subsequently minister of jus- 
tice in the government of Lamartine, and other lead- 



94 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

ers of opinion. I cannot even allude to the many 
famous places I visited on the Continent, but I will 
except two or three. It was in a memorable Napo- 
leonic year that I saw France. ' In Paris, under the 
dome of the Hotel des Invalides, they were preparing 
a magnificent mausoleum for the great emperor, 
whose remains w^ere to be received from St. Helena 
in the autumn. The old soldiers on the banks of the 
Seine, who had fought under the Little Corporal in 
many battles, were aglow with enthusiasm at the ap- 
proach of the pageant. I stopped in July in the pub- 
lic scpiare of Boulogne and noted its points of interest. 
Two weeks later the young pretender, known after- 
w^ards as Napoleon III., dashed into the square with 
fifty armed followers, posted a proclamation on the 
walls, and called upon the people to rise and drive 
Louis Philippe from France. The wild adventurer 
was sentenced to the citadel of Ham for life, but he 
contrived to escape from his grim prison in May, 
184G. Other historic mile-stones dwelt in my mem- 
ory, and furnished the keys whereby I subsequently 
interpreted the downfall of Louis Philippe, in 1848, 
and the extinguishment of the Napoleonic dynasty, 
in the Franco-German war of 1870. 

On returning from the Continent we had a night 
ride on a coach from Dover to London. We reached 
Shooter's Hill just as the orb of day was breaking 
through a bank of clouds. The basin wherein the 
great metro])olis reposes seemed a vast lake, whose 
bosom was rippled by the wind. The dome of the 
Cathedral loomed above the surface and glistened in 
the morning sunbeams, while Highgate stood sentry 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEKOK. 95 

over the scene on the north. The ilkision was per- 
fect. 

I shall run through the country at random, merely 
pointing to a few landmarks, which stand as blazed 
trees along the track where history has hewed its 
path. I am not writing a sketch of my travels. The 
letters to the New Yorlc American^ above mentioned, 
give glimpses of my wanderings, and show that I did 
not attend solely to Anti-slaveiy matters, but for six 
months went the beaten track of a tourist. In what 
I jot down I shall generally have some reference to 
human progress. 

I w^ent down to Hastings to see the harbor and the 
pier Avhere William anchored the seven hundred ves- 
sels and landed the sixty thousand men for the great 
conquest. Six miles inland is the iield where the 
grim invader, in October, 1060, fought the battle that 
placed the kingdom of Alfred the Saxon under the 
heel of William the Norman. Poor Harold, the Eng- 
lish monarch, pierced in the eye by an arrow, lost 
his crown and his life in the struggle. Here the Con- 
queror, " of pious memory," erected Battle Abbey as 
a memorial of the victory that gave England the feu- 
dal system and the Domesday Book. The abbey is a 
frowning edifice, partially in ruins, a crumbling land- 
mark of British history. 

On the south bank of the Thames, a few miles from 
London, I saw a beautiful meadow. At the west I 
caught sight of the towers of Windsor Castle, while 
my eves scanned the dense smoke that canopied the 
metropolis on the east. In 1215 there transpired on 
this little meadow one of the most important events 



9G RANDOM EECOLIECTIONS. 

in the history of England. Gloomy King John came 
over from Windsor to Runnymede to confer with his 
rebellious barons. On the 19th of June, at their dic- 
tation, he affixed the royal seal (perhaps he could not 
write his name) to Magna Charta. 

Thousands of Englishmen daily sail up and down 
the Thames, past this sedgy spot, without being aware 
that their Declaration of Independence was issued 
here six hundred years ago. There is nothing strange 
in this. Crowds of Americans daily beat their surges 
against a little brick edifice in Philadelphia without 
remembering that within its walls, on July 4, 1776, a 
few feeble colonies issued the immortal document 
that hurled defiance (to quote Webster) at a power 
whose morning drum-beat, starting with the sun and 
keeping company with the hours, encircled the earth 
with one continuous and unbroken strain of the mar- 
tial airs of England. 

The wars of the Eoses changed the line of descent 
of the English crown from the Plantagenets to the 
Tudors, In 1485 the White Rose of York was blast- 
ed by the Red Rose of Lancaster, on Bosworth field. 
I had seen the IjiUtlo fought so often on the stage by 
Booth, Forrest, and Macready, that, after viewing 
the old schoolhouse at Leicester, wherein Dr. Sam 
Johnson was once usher, I rode a little way out of 
town to tlie plain where the genuine crook-backed 
Richard was slain, and the coronet placed on the 
brow of Henry VII. by Lord Stanle}^ The guide 
was loquacious, as became his calling. I swallowed 
his stories without a grimace, till lie told me my 
feet at that moment rested on the very sod where 



BOSVVORTH FIELD. ROB ROY. 97 

Eichard cried aloud, " A lioir.e I A horse I my king- 
dom for a horse !'' Then I was tempted to bolt the 
track, because no historian informs us that " White 
Surrey " had been killed or had fled ; and while that 
renowned steed lived what need had Eichard of an- 
other horse ? 

However, I early learned to accept such tales as 
true, and get as much enjoyment out of the delusion 
as possible. When, for example, they exhibited the 
block in the Tower of London whereon Lady Jane 
Grey is said to have been beheaded, I admitted that 
some sharjo instrument had made a cleft in it. They 
pointed me to the schoolroom at Huntingdon where 
Cromwell learned his A B C's, and to the identical 
wooden desk at which he sat. I conceded that the 
latter had been thoroughly whittled, and the only won- 
der was that it had stood the jack-knives so well for 
two hundred and lift}'' 3'ears. When gazing at cer- 
tain suspicious-looking scratches on the window-sill 
of AVhitehall, and on being assured that these*wcre 
the prints of the spikes that helped to hold up the 
scaffold whereon Charles I. was put to death in 1049, 
I did not for a moment dispute that that unfortunate 
monarch lost his head in that vicinity about that 
time. So when in the Highlands of Scotland an an- 
cient danie charged only a crown for letting me han- 
dle Kob Roy's alleged musket, I drew an approving 
smile from the old crone by the remark that the bar- 
rel was uncommonly long and the lock very rusty. 
Is not this the best way to deal with this kind of 
so-called information ? Tourists must not be too crit- 
ical. 



9$ RANDOM EECOLLEC.TIONH. 

Oliver Cromwell prepared the way for the expulsion 
of the Stuarts. I walked through the brick house 
and over the fair lields of Huntingdon where the Pu- 
ritan spent his youth. The mansion resembled a large 
Pennsylvania farmhouse of the higher class. Here, 
in mature years, he trained his Ironsides, who marched 
to the tune of Old Hundred, but in many an encoun- 
ter met undismayed the legions of the court and hie- 
rarchy, oft sweeping them like chaff before the wind. 
His well-planned battle at Naseby ruined Charles. I 
traversed the hillock over which the lion-hearted 
general, sword in hand, led the decisive charge. 
When he became Protector of the Commonwealth 
he took up the despised name of Kingless England, 
and bore it aloft on the eagle-wings of a far-sighted 
policy, and made it respected and feared at every 
court in Europe. He was a great soldier and a great- 
er ruler, and stood among the foremost men of his 
time. 

I skirted the fatal field of Sedgemoor, where the un- 
fortunate followers of Monmouth sought to dethrone 
James II. before his hour had fully come. I sat in 
the old Court-house at Taunton, where the monster 
Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes, which condemned 
to death three hundred and twenty-six men, women, 
and boys for participating in this uprising, and sent 
eight hundred and forty-one victims into perpetual 
slavery. The vials of retribution were ])oured u])on 
the head of this infamous judge when his master fell. 
He covvered in a tap-room at GreenAvich, disguised as 
a servant, and, on discovery, begged to be lodged in 
the Tower as a protectioi} from the populace, who 



WILLIAM IlL— OLD SARUM. 09 

threatened to tear liiin limb from limb. There he 
howled like a maniac, haunted by the ghosts of those 
wiiom he had condemned to the gallows and the 
galleys at Taunton. The blackest villain that ever 
stained the bench was George Jeffreys. 

Torbay is one of the most beautiful ocean inlets 
my eyes ever beheld. It lies in the lap of luxuriant 
Devonshire. I saw it in the high noon of summer 
exuberance. In this bay, on the 5tli of ^J^ovember, 
1688, William, the Stadtholder of Holland, anchored 
the great fleet, and landed the grand army he brought 
over to drive James II. from the British throne. The 
credulous king was slow" to believe that his nephew 
had been invited to invade England by eminent lead- 
ers of public opinion. It was an easier conquest than 
that of the other William, who landed at Hastings 
six hundred and twenty-two years before. James 
fled to France. In July, 1090, lie made a last feeble 
rally for his throne at the battle of the Boyne. In 
early youth I read a pictorial history of England. 
Among its illustrations was a vivid sketch of Will- 
iam crossing the Boyne and shouting to his soldiers, 
" To glory ! My lads, to glory !" It has been the 
rule of my life to deepen the good impressions of my 
youth. Of course I saw the Boyne, and sat dow^n on 
the northern bank, where William was wounded, and 
fancied I saw the cowardly James fleeing over the 
hills on the opposite side, the flrst one to run awa}^ 
William III. was the greatest monarch who ever sat 
on the British throne. 

The rotten borough called Old Sarum was the laugh- 
ing-stock of the Whigs in the day of the flrst Eeform 



100 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

Bill of 1832. I visited its site, getting glimpses of 
Salisbury Plain, a locality which had nestled in my 
memory since I read the religious tract entitled 
" The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." I could scarce- 
ly believe my eyes as I looked upon Old Saruni. For 
centuries previous to the Keform Bill it had sent two 
members to Parliament, though not a soul had lived 
there since the Tudors mounted the throne. It was 
a mere sand-hill, without showing even the ruins of a 
dwelling, though once it had a small population. Yet 
this utter waste, down to 1832, had as large a repre- 
sentation in the Commons as Lancashire, with its 
million and a half of people. The voting at elec- 
tions used to be done by the owner of Old Sarum, 
who sent himself and a favorite, or two of the latter 
stripe, to Parliament. 

Though the Eeform Bill of 1832 abolished absurdi- 
ties like Old Sarum, it left the representation in the 
House of Commons in a very unsatisfactory state. 
This led to Chartism, a well-meaning but rather tur- 
bulent faction, whose five foundation-principles w^ere 
universal suffrage, voting by ballot, equal parliamen- 
tary districts, no property qualification for represen- 
tatives, and the payment of salaries to members. 
This platform will seem familiar to the people of 
the United States, but the announcement of the 
Chartist creed threw England into convulsions. I 
happened to speak at a large Chartist meeting. 
Some English friends warned me not to attend, but 
I said I had rode out many mobs in America, and 
rather like.l it. The organization was already drifting 
upon the shoals of violence. I cautioned them against 



THE ENGLISH CHARTISTS. 101 

disorder. But in a fe'.v years thev destroyed them- 
selyes and their party by outbreaks and bloodshed. 
In later times, and under the guidance of Gladstone, 
Bright, AYilliam E. Forster, and their associates, the 
cause of free suffrage and parliamentary reform has 
recovered some of the ground Avhich the Chartists 
proyed incompetent to occupy. 



CHAPTER XTL 

Some British Poets. — Thomas Campbell. — In the Loudon Con- 
vention he Ilidicnlcs American Poets. — He is Answered. — 
Ebenezer Elliott. — James Montgomery. — Lord Byron's Widow. 
— His Daughter, Ada Augusta. — Thomas Carlyle. — He Calls 
Victor Hugo a Humbug, and Criticises Emerson. — In Scotland. 
— Rev. Doctors Chalmers and Wardlaw as Pulpit Orators. — The 
Manager of the Edinburgh Review Presides over an Anti-Slavery 
Meeting. — Sydney Smith Preaclies a Sermon. — Lord Francis 
Jeffrey on Law Reform, the New York Revised Statutes, and 
Jeremy Bentham, the Codifier. — The Field of Culloden. — 
Charles Edward Stuart. — Clarkson's Opinion of the Four Stuarts 
and the Four Georges. — In Ireland. — O'Connell on the Repeal 
of the Union.— John Randolph Said he was the First Orator in 
Europe.— Other Famous Men and Places. — Return to America. 
— Admitted to the Boston Bar. 

An amusing scene occurred in the London Anti- 
slavery Convention that may be worth mentioning. 
I was on the platform reading a report when Thomas 
Campbell entered, lie was greeted with applause. 
I stopped reading, Mr. O'Connell, with a liourish, 
reminded the American delegates that the author of 
" Gertrude of Wyoming " stood before them, and there 
were loud calls for a speech. The poet, in a muddled 
style, began to compliment American institutions, and 
then plunged, in a zigzag way, into a contemptuous 
criticism of our poetry. His manner was peculiar, 
his pose unsteady, his tongue thick. I replied, eulo- 
gizing his productions, and warmly vindicating the 
authors he had assailed. lie kept jumping up and 



SOME BRITISH POETS. 103 

interjecting res])onses, and our colloquy kept the au- 
dience in a roar. All this was taken down by the 
stenographer, but it was omitted from the ])ublished 
report by the Englisli managers on their excuse tliat 
Campbell Avas intoxicated. But I was not disposed 
to sit still and hear Bryant, Whittier, and Longfellow 
abused by any British bard, whether sober or drunk'. 
A glance at two or three other poets must sulMce. 
A letter of introduction brouglit me in front of '' p]l- 
liott & Co.'s Iron and Steel AV^arehouse," at Sheffield. 
I went to his house, wliere I was greeted with a hearty 
" Wallc in !" from the Corn-law Ehymer, who was 
standing on the threshold in his stocking-feet. lie 
made no apology for his rough appearance, drew on 
his shoes, and opened a racy dialogue about America. 
He was enthusiastic in his admiration of General Jack- 
son, and dilated on his heroism in the battle Avitli 
" Biddle and the Bank." Elliott, like Burns, was the 
poet of tJic poor, and his songs were the lays of labor. 
Unlike the Ayrshire ploughman, the Yorkshire iron- 
monger did not draw his inspiration from open, breezy 
fields, but f]"om the stifling air of hot furnaces. Burns 
was the bard of yeomen, Elliott Avas the bard of arti- 
sans. Presenting me with a copy of his works, and 
slightly changing his dress, we ascended the hill to 
the embowered cottage of James Montgomery. The 
contrast could hardly have been greater than that be- 
tween the rugged rhymester and the sacred singer. 
Polished in manner, neat in dress, calm in conversa- 
tion, Montgomery inquired about the Pro -slavery 
mobs in the United States, especially the destruction 
of newspapers, his voice rising to indignation as he 



104 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

spoke of his own imprisonment in York Castle in 
early cla3^s for the publication, in the Sheffield Iris, of 
liberal doctrines, offensive to the administration of 
the vouno-er Pitt. 

In London I met Lady Byron, in company \Yith 
her daughter, Lady Lovelace, Lord Byron's Ada Au- 
gusta, the "gentle Ada," sole heiress of her father's 
fame. The mother took a deep interest in emancipa- 
tion and common-school education in America, but 
evaded all reference to her late husband. The eyes 
of the daughter sparkled ^Yhen I told her that not 
only in the mansions of the rich in the cities, but in 
log-huts bej^ond the Alleghany Mountains, his poems 
were familiar as household words. Her countenance 
seemed to me to reflect more closely the brilliant feat- 
ures of the father than the plain face of the mother. 

I met Thomas Carlvle. Lie was dressed in a shab- 
by suit of gray. I was not delighted with this " writ- 
er of books," as he called himself. We talked about 
America, and he betrayed great ignorance of a people 
at whom he sneered. lie conversed rapidlv, Avalked 
the room nervously, and shot out porcupine quills in- 
discriminatel}'' at good and evil. As a specimen of 
his talk I will say that he called Victor Liugo " a glit- 
tering humbug." His vicious style of writing caused 
him to go by crooked ways up to an idea instead of 
advancing towards it by a straight path. Much of 
his assumed profundity sprang from this source. In 
later times his execrable stjde grew more and more 
misleading. Take, for instance, some of his lauded 
writings, and disentangle and analyze paragraphs that 
appear to hide in their meshes ideas too deep and aw- 



CAELYLE AXD EMEESOX. 105 

ful to be expressed in plain Anglo-Saxon, and you will 
discover that the matter is either quite meaningless 
or very commonplace. But, notwithstanding his crab- 
bed sentences, rooted prejudices, and sour temper, Car- 
lyle's war on '• Shams " was beneficial to mankind, 
Avhile his pen, at lucid intervals, shed valuable light 
along the track of history and biography. Ameri- 
cans must not be too severe on the unique Scotchman, 
though he is reported to have said of our Emerson 
that his few ideas would be more clearly and beauti- 
fully clothed if he used half as many words to cover 
them. Transcendental writers do indeed need trans- 
lators to put their productions into idiomatic English. 
It is mere affectation to go into raptures over chap- 
ters one third of which nobody really understands. 
Life is too short to be wasted in sifting a few kernels 
of Vv^heat out of bushels of chaff. 

I might describe many persons whom I met abroad, 
men and women, celebrities, oddities, famous, infa- 
mous, but I have no room for them. Several are no- 
ticed in my volume of " Sketches of Eeforms and Ee- 
formers.'" 

"We must give England a rest, and repair to Scot- 
land. I went the grand rounds of the Lowlands and 
the Highlands, and sketched outlines of my tour 
in letters to the New Yorh American. Repetitions 
will be avoided. I jot only here and there. I listened 
to a sermon by Dr. Chalmers, then in the fulness of 
his prime, and the leader in the movement that ulti- 
mated in the disruption of the Church of John Knox. 
His discourse was a chain of close reasoning, glitter- 
ing imagery, and glowing with fervor. Its drawback 
5* 



1D6 RA5TOOM RECOLLECTlON^S. 

to me was the strong Scotch accent of the orator. 
His delivery lacked the mellow cadence of Dr. Ealph 
Wardlaw of Glasgow, who, to Dr. Chalmers, was as 
ApoUos to Paul. 

Our large Anti-slavery meeting in the Scotch capi- 
tal was presided over by the manager of the Edin- 
hurgh Review. With what dash, audacity, and brill- 
iancy did that celebrated periodical leap into the arena 
of journalism in the dark, troubled, and despotic epoch 
of 1802. The cause of freedom in both hemispheres 
is its debtor. Perhaps at the head of the long list of 
writers who imparted lustre to its pages and gath- 
ered fame by their contributions during the first 
forty years of its existence stand Sydney Smith, 
Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, and Thomas Bab- 
ington Macaulay. It made them all lords except 
Smith, who would have been a lord-bishop if he had 
not cracked so many jokes over the head of the Es- 
tablished (Church, i had heard Brougham and Ma- 
caulay in Parliament. In a country parish I rode ten 
miles in the rain to listen to a sermon by Smith, the 
Canon of St. Paul's, who was visiting a rural rector. 
It was a plain discourse, though tAVO or three para- 
graphs reminded me that Peter Plymley was in 
the desk. In Edinburgh I had an interview with 
Lord Jeffrey, then at the head of the Scotch judiciary. 
He took an interest in law reform, and asked me a 
good many questions about the New York Revised 
Statutes and their authors, Avhich I reciprocated by 
inquiring into the habits and studies of the strange 
cod i tier Jeremy Bentham, then deceased, who always 
seemed to me to be in law what Dr. Franklin was in 



THE FIELD OF CDLLODEN. 107 

science, Dr. Johnson In literature, and Dr. Greeley in 
journalism. I deemed it fortunate that I had seen 
and heard the four greatest of the Edinburgh re- 
viewers. 

The last Stuart made a gallant stand at Preston- 
Pans in 184:5, just below Edinburgh, for the crown of 
his grandfather. His Scotch claymores " hewed deep 
their gory way " into the ranks of the English, and 
thev fled. But the tide turned ao-ainst the youns: 
prince the next year. On a bleak ridge near Inver- 
ness he fouglit the fatal battle of CuUoden in April, 
1740. In spite of his winning manners and indomit- 
able courage his cause was ruined. Having again and 
again declaimed at school CampbeH's " Lochiel ! Loch- 
iel ! beware of the day," I saw Culloden on a bluster- 
ing October afternoon, and almost wished that the 
chivalrous Charles Edward had fared better. At 
Playf ord Hall, the residence of Thomas Clarkson, the 
conversation turned upon the Stuarts. " The four 
Stuarts," said the companion of Granville Sharp and 
"William Wilberforce, " were a bad lot." Then, as 
if in parenthesis, he axlded, " And so were the four 
Georges." Time will never reveree this verdict. 

When in London Mr. O'Connell invited me to Dub- 
lin, and laughingly said he would induct me into the 
ravsteries of his agitation for the repeal of the union 
between England and Ireland. His son Johu, then 
in the Commons, presided at our Anti-slavery assem- 
bly in Dublin. He was a faint copy of his sire. The 
father gave me a special ticket to a Kepeal meeting. 
He delivered an elaborate address of two hours' length, 
intended, as he said, to inform me of the ends he had 



108 RAXDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

in vie\7. Mr. O'Connell was foremost among the 
eloquent public speakers of his era. John Eandolph 
said he Avas the greatest orator he heard in Europe. 
He won the title of " Liberator of Ireland." In the 
address I have referred to he said that no political re- 
form was worth the shedding of one drop of blood. 
His repeal agitation brought him to prison, and came 
to naught. Though something of a demagogue, he 
was the friend of man, irrespective of clime, color, 
creed, or condition. Wherever humanity sank under 
the blow of the tyrant there Avere found the genial 
heart and clarion voice of Daniel O'Connell sjanpa- 
thizing with the fallen and rebuking the oppressor. 

Other scenes rise before me, but I must stop and 
hie to America. It would be pleasant to sketch a 
visit to Boston, where William Brewster, my Puritan 
ancestor, was long imprisoned for nonconformity ; and 
to the gloomy jail at Bedford, where John Bunyan 
wrote the " Pilgrim''s Progress ;'' but there is no space 
for them. Nor is there for descriptions of other fa- 
mous places I saw, as, for example, Flodden Field, 
immortalized bv Scott in " Marmion :" and the site of 
the Pye House, whose plot sent Algernon Sydney and 
William Kussell to the scaffold ; and Moor Park, 
where William III. was wont to consult Temple, and 
where Swift captivated and ruined " Stella ;" and 
Blenheim Castle, whose stately halls saw streams of 
dotage flow from Marlborough's eyes; and Dayles- 
ford, rebuilt by Warren Hastings, and to which he 
retreated when pursued by Burke, Fox, and Sheridan 
in the great hnpeachment trial ; and Birnam Wood, 
where I cut two memorial canes and took them to 



RETURN TO AMERICA IN 1841. 109 

Dunsinane, and could then have assured Macbeth (if 
there ever were such a king, and he had been pres- 
ent) that Birnam AVood had come to Dunsinane ; and 
the sanguinaiy field of Bannockburn, where a min- 
strel, accompanying his melodious voice on a harp, 
sang the immortal ballad of Burns : 

"Scots, Trim liae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led." 

I dismiss all these scenes, and gladly hie to Amer- 
ica, where I arrived in 1841. On my return I com- 
pleted my law studies, and, in lS-42, went into prac- 
tice at Boston, But I still performed much work in 
the Anti-slavery cause, both on the platform and in 
the press. To make way for other matters, I shall say 
little of my labors in this latter field. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Law.— Boston Bench and Bar.— Judges Story, Sprague, and 
Shaw. — Jeremiah Mason.— Daniel Webster.— Ruf us Choate. — 
Their Triumphs in the Criminal Cases of Avery, the Knapps, 
and Tirrell.— Samuel Hoar.- He is Sent to South Carolina to 
Test the Constitutionality of Laws Imprisoning Free Colored 
Seamen.— Expelled from the State by Force.— Mr. Hoar's Fee 
as a Referee.— Choate before Juries.- Shaw on the Bench. — 
Choate's Stimulants, Hot Coffee and Hot Water.— Tirrell's Two 
Celebrated Trials for Murder and Arson.— Parker, the Prose- 
cuting Attorney.— Somnambulism the Defence. — George Head's 
Manufactured Testimony, and Rufus Choate's Marvellous Ora- 
tory, Twice Save Tirrell's Life. 

In disposing of judges, lawyers, and courts at one 
sittino;, I shall illustrate the rule that adherence to 
the order of topics is more important than regard for 
the order of dates. I shall begin at Boston, where I 
was first admitted to practice. As a general rule 
(though there y\nll be many ex««ptions), when I take 
up a lawyer or a case, I shall get through with them 
before the man or the subject is laid down. 

At the time of which I am speaking, the bench and 
bar at Boston were exceptionally distinguished. Jo- 
seph Story was in the zenith of his fame ; Judge 
Sprague, of the United States District Court, who 
won a high reputation as Senator in Congress, Avas 
his worth}^ associate. Chief -justice Shaw, of the State 
Supreme Court, was one of the ablest lawyers in New 
Enoiand. The leader of the bar was, of course, Mr. 



WEBSTEE. — MASON. CHOATE, 111 

AVebster, though Jeremiah Mason stood close to hnn. 
But, viewed in some lights, the most brilliant figure 
Avas Rufus Choate. He was appreciated by the five 
great men just mentioned, and was the admiration of 
his junior brethren of the pi^ofession, who were accus- 
tomed to pack the courts to witness his wonderful 
displays of logic, learning, and eloquence. 

While I dwelt in Boston, Jeremiah Mason was one 
of its greatest lawyers. For half a century he was a 
commanding figure at the New England bar. Born 
and educated in my native county, he spent his best 
years in 'New Hampshire, whence he removed to Bos- 
ton in 1832. I recall his tall form, six feet seven 
inches high, as he passed along the streets, or tow- 
ered above his brethren in the courts. I heard him 
once before the full bench. Deliberate, methodical, 
luminous, compact, with little rhetoric and few ges- 
tures, his argument was a masterly performance of 
steel-linked logic. 

Daniel Webster in his autobiography, written in 
1838, gives a graphic sketch of his .great rival. I 
quote a paragraph : " For the nine years I lived in 
Portsmouth, Mr. Mason and myself, in the counties 
where we practised, were on opposite sides of each 
case pretty much as a matter of course. ... If there 
be in this country a stronger intellect, if there be a 
mind of more native resources, if there be a visioji 
that sees quicker or sees deeper into whatever is in- 
tricate or whatsoever is profound, I confess I have not 
known it. I have not written this paragraph with- 
out considering what it implies. I look to that indi- 
vidual who, if it belong to anybody, is entitled to bo 



112 EAXDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

an exception. But I deliberately let the judgment 
stand." The individual referred to was Chief-justice 
Marshall. This opinion of Mason was recorded after 
Webster had been thirty-four years at the bar and 
twenty years in Congress. 

One of Mr. Mason's greatest achievements while in 
Boston was his successful defence, under the most ad- 
verse circumstances, at Newport, R. L, of the Rev. 
Ephraim K. Avery, on an indictment for the killing 
of his mistress, a Miss Cornell, while trying to pro- 
duce an abortion by his own unskilled hand. The 
trial was replete with dramatic incidents, and famous 
in its day. Mr. Mason cleared another sort of pris- 
oner by quite a different method. After he had be- 
come distinguished in New Hampshire, he went into 
a rural county to try a civil suit. A pompous little 
judge was on the bench. He assigned Mason to de- 
fend a negro on an indictment for petty larceny. 
With surprise, tinged with indignation. Mason de- 
clined the task. " Sir, you must obey the order of 
the court," said the little judge. " All you need do 
is to take your client into the adjoining room and 
give liim the best advice you can." This struck Ma- 
son in a funny light, and he arose, beckoned to the 
negro, and stalked into an empty room with his 
" client " at his heels. " Are you guilty ?" asked Ma- 
son. " Yes, sir," responded the negro. " Can they 
prove it V " Yes, sir ; all the witnesses are here." 
Mason put his head out of the open window and said, 
" It is about fifteen feet to the ground. Do you see 
those woods ?" The negro leaped, and Mason re- 
turned into the court. By and by the case was called, 



SAMUEL HOAR. 113 

but thiC negro did not respond. '' Where is your cli- 
ent T asked the little judge. " I do not know," re- 
plied Mason. " Your honor directed me to give him 
the best advice I could, and the last I saw of him he 
was running for those woods over there." Everv- 
body laughed except the little judge, and the curtain 
fell on the scene. 

The acquittal of Avery by Mr. Mason, the convic- 
tion of the Knapps by Mr. "Webster for the murder of 
Joseph White of Salem, and the acquittal of Albert 
J. Tirrell by Eufus Choatc for the murder of Maria 
Bickford, were the greatest triumphs in criminal cases 
ever won by Boston laAvyers. 

It was a rare privilege to listen, as I did, to Mr. 
Webster's eulogium on Joseph Story and Jeremiah 
Mason when announcing their death before the bench 
and bar of Boston. 

Samuel Hoar was for a long time one of the lead- 
ers of the Massachusetts bar, to which he was admit- 
ted in 1805. The first time I saw him was in 1836 or 
1837, in the trial of a celebrated Avill case before a 
jury at Boston. Mr. Webster was his chief opponent. 
Rufus Choate was one of the junior counsel. I heard 
both Webster and Hoar address the jury in this case 
on two successive days, Mr. Webster speaking first. 
It was apparent that "the Great Expounder" stood 
a little in fear of the calm, cool, incisive logic of the 
wary advocate that was to follow him, whose pose and 
style reminded the spectator of Jeremiah Mason. 

In the turbulent days South Carolina was accus- 
tomed to seize free negro seamen who came into her 
ports from the Xorthern States, and lodge them in 



114 EANDOM kf:collections. 

jail until the vessels whereon they served sailed away. 
If any of these negroes happened to be left behind, 
the commonwealth of John C. Calhonn would sell 
them into perpetual slavery to pay the jail fees. In 
1814: the Legislature of Massachusetts (some of the 
colored sailors of that state had been thus impris- 
oned) sent Mr. Hoar to Charleston to test the consti- 
tutionalitv of these statutes in the courts sitting in 
that state. He arrived there in N^ovember, when the 
Legislature of South Carolina passed a law directing 
the governor to expel him from the state by force. 
On December 5 he was collared and put on shipboard, 
and might have been killed by a "chivalrous" mob 
that pursued him to the wharf, had it not been for 
the presence of his daughter. It was a long line of 
deeds of this kind that almost reconciled us to seeing 
South Carolina ravaged by Union troops during the 
war, and subsequently trodden down by a negro leg- 
islature sitting in the capitol that passed the law for 
the expulsion of Mr. Hoar, and subjected for a while 
to the robber rule of that infamous rogue. Governor 
Franklin J. Moses. 

In Boston some Connecticut clients employed me 
to sue the owners of the woollen mill at Lowell, 
Avhereof Abbott Lawrence and his brothers were the 
principal proprietors, for an alleged violation of a 
contract for the purchase of a quantity of wool. 
Other wool-growers in Connecticut had commenced 
similar suits against the same defendants. The amount 
involved v/as large, and it was agreed that there should 
be only one trial, and that the result in all the cases 
should hinge on that trial. It was further agreed 



RUFUS CIIOATE's ORATORY. 115 

that the whole matter should be sent to Mr. Hoar to 
hear and determine as referee. He resided in Con- 
cord, and took the testimony in Boston, where tliere 
were several sittings. The controversy was decidedly 
sharp, and the swearing pretty hard. One of the 
Lawrences sold his shares in the Lowell mill, and tlius 
qualified himself to be a witness, thereby gaining an 
advantage over my clients, who, under the law of evi- 
dence as it then stood, could not testify. On the 
tui-ning-point in the case Lawrence contradicted my 
witnesses exphcitly. Mr. Hoar was on intimate so- 
cial and political relations with the Lavrrences. 

I have told this commonplace anecdote for the sin- 
gle purpose of stating the fee of the referee. Mr. 
Hoar decided the case in jny favor. When he hand- 
ed me his report as referee I asked him how much his 
charge was. " Twenty dollars," was the quiet reply. 
Shades of Tv\'eed, and the long procession of departed 
referees of our epoch (not to speak of those who sur- 
vive), how times and prices have changed since the 
days of honest and inflexible Samuel Hoar ! 

Mr. Hoar married a daughter of Eoger Sherman, 
who w^as on the committee that drafted the Decla- 
ration of Independence. He Avas the father of E. 
Eockwood and George Frisbie Hoar. The mother of 
William M. Evarts was also a dauHiter of Eoofer 
Sherman. 

"What spectator that beheld Eufus Choate in a great 
cause could ever forget that tall ligure, that sallow 
complexion, that piercing dark eye, those black locks, 
which hung in curls over an expansive forehead, those 
dramatic gestures that gave point and emphasis to 



116 KANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

pungent sentences, that majestic tread, which shook 
the room till the windows shivered, that voice whose 
notes now swelled like a trumpet, and anon sank into 
a wail as if a gentle breeze were sighing in the tree- 
tops, and all this Avithout the slightest affectation, 
and with a clearness of vision that saw the pinch of 
his case, and a sincerity of manner which proved that 
victory, and not disjDlay, was the end he kept steadily 
in view ? Mr, Choate argued a case in the Su})reme 
Court at Washington. A distinguished Southern 
Senator heard him, and speaking to Mr. Webster the 
next day said : "• I listened to your Mr. Choate yester- 
day. He is an extraordinary man." "An extraor- 
dinary man !" replied Webster. " Sir, he is a marvel." 
Like Edmund Eurke, whom he studied and admired, 
Mr. Choate drove "a substantiv^e and six." Chief- 
justice Lemuel Shaw Avas a man of few words. He 
looked like a rough fragment of the feudal system. 
Short, thick, with a head covered with coarse, frowzy 
hair, which appeared never to have been combed, he 
had a habit of resting his elbows while in court on 
the shelf before him, and holding up his chin by his 
hands, and glaring at counsel through spectacles 
trimmed with tortoise-shell instead of silver or gold, 
a rather striking resemblance to a grizzly bear sitting 
on his haunches. But liis head was clear as sunsiiine, 
and his rhetoric a model in style, though his growling 
voice made the short opinions he delivered on side 
issues during the trial of a cause seem like nectar 
gurgling from a tar-barrel. The Old Chief, as he was 
familiarly called, had a gentle heart, and there was a 
soft ])lace in it for Choate, of whom he Avas really 



CHIEF-JUSTICE LEMUEL SHAW. 117 

proud, though apt to jerk him up with a short rein 
when too word}^ One afternoon I stepped into court 
when Choate was flashing his lightnings around the 
Chief-justice, who kept interrupting him. Wallving 
with Mr. Choate to our lodgings an hour later, I re- 
marked that the Old Chief was unusually restive and 
annoying during his argument. " Yes," said Choate, 
" he is an old barbarian !" Then taking a few long 
strides, he added in slow, solemn style, " But life, lib- 
erty, and property are safe in his hands." He was 
arguing on another occasion a novel point of law be- 
fore the full bench. He was on the crest of the wave. 
He expressed his gratification at the opportunity of 
discussing this new question at the bar of a tribunal 
whose reputation for learning and integrity had long- 
since overflowed the boandaries of the commonwealth 
of Massachusetts, and reached the uttermost limits of 
the Union. The Old Chief broke in : " Mr. Choate, do 
you present that as a serious argument to this court V 
" Oh, no, your honor," replied Mr, Choate, in his hu- 
morous st3de, " it was only a rhetorical flourish." 
Then, stooping down, he said to his associate in a 
tone loud enough to be heard all around, " Tlie Chief- 
justice is an urbane gentleman. It is a pity he don't 
know any law." But there is no end to stories of 
this sort about Mr. Choate, and I forbear. 

It has been my fortune to hear many of the fore- 
most lawyers in this country and in Great Britain. 
As an advocate before a jury, especially in a diihcult 
case, I never saw the superior of Rufus Choate. 

The habits of sucli consummate orators are worthy 
of study. Immediately before he was to address a 



118 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

jury Mr. Olioate avouIcI step across the street to the 
Boston Dehnonico's and drink two or three cnps of 
strong, piping -hot coffee. A jug of smoking -hot 
water would stand by his side in the court-room. 
The coffee stimuhited the brain. Sips of the water 
kept up the stimuhis and lubricated the throat. And 
now came the cyclone. The man knows little about 
physiology who resorts to brand}^ before making a 
speech, and imbibes cold water during its delivery. 

The interval between Mason and Choate was very 
wide. The happy mean was hit by Mr. Webster when 
addressing either the court or the jury. 

I hesitate about relatino; the followino- instance of 
manufactured testimony. What I shall state is true, 
but I remember the adage that " even the truth is not 
to be spoken at all times." However, this occurred 
so long ago that the principal parties passed from 
earth many years since, and the recital may serve a 
valuable purpose as an illustration of what I believe 
occurs oftener than the outside public suppose, i. e., 
the manufacturing of testimony to meet an emergen- 
cy in judicial proceedings. 

One of the celebrated criminal cases in New Eng- 
land was that of Albert J. Tirrell, who was tried at 
Boston in 1840, on two indictments, for the double 
crime of murdering his mistress, Maria Bickford (I 
think I give these names correctly), and then setting 
fire to the assignation-house in which he concealed 
her. Tirrell's family was respectable and wealthy. 
He was a wild fellow, had a wife, was infatuated with 
the Bickford girl, feared he w^as about to lose her, and 
this was supposed to be his reason, for cutting her 



tikrell's celebrated case. 119 

throat with a razor, and firing the house to cover the 
deed. Each of tliese offences was punishable with 
death. The leading counsel for Tirrell was Eufus 
Choate, and who that ever saw Samuel Dunn Parker 
could forget the long-headed, hard-working prosecut- 
ing attorney ? His form, voice, manner, victories and 
defeats are among the interesting memories of the 
Boston bar. 

The hinge-point in the defence in this case was 
somnambulism. It was selected by the junior counsel 
in preference to an alibi (which was tendered), be- 
cause, as one of them remarked, the latter was liable 
to break dovrn. ]\Ir. Choate, who doubtless knew 
nothing of the circumstances of this selection, merely 
said that he liked the line of defence, for an alihi was 
stale, but there was a fresh flavor about somnambu- 
lism. It is proper to state that I was wholly unaware 
of these preliminary matters, and had no suspicion 
that an}^ of the testimony had been manufactured 
until after Tirrell was acquitted on both indictments. 

George Head (I draw on my memory for his first 
name) kept a livery stable in the heart of Boston. He 
slept over his stable, and in the night had a lantern 
burning in the hall below. The small house where 
Maria ])oarded was in an obscure street, and about 
eight minutes' walk from the stable. The murder 
and arson Avere committed just before daybreak, a 
waning moon still shining. Head and Tirrell for 
some years had been " hale fellows well met." They 
travelled together and drank and played cards togeth- 
er, and did many other things in partnership. Head 
had a clear brain, steady nerve, rare self-poise, and 



120 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

was a faithful confederate in a desperate straight. 
Before he v/as placed on the witness stand the ex- 
traordinary line of defence was fully explained by one 
of the junior counsel to the jury, which lifted the ex- 
perienced prosecuting attorney quite off his feet with 
surprise. The way was prepared for Head by pre- 
liminary testimony from two or tliree members of 
the Tirrell family concerning the alleged sleep-walk- 
ing habits of Albert in his youth, and how he would 
glare wildly and utter guttural sounds on such occa- 
sions. The path was still further cleared b}^ show- 
ing the precise hour when Tirrell left the assignation- 
house on that morning, uttering guttural noises as 
he went stumbling down the steps. 

Head now entered the witness-box, and fixed the 
precise time when he was awakened b}^ guttural noises 
at the door of his stable, which was exactly ten min- 
utes later than the guttural noises on the steps of the 
assignation-house. Amid much other matter Head 
testified, in substance, that he looked at the clock, 
thrust his head out of a window, and asked, " Who is 
there?"" A man turned his face up, and the moon- 
beams showed that it was Tirrell. He opened the 
door and let him in. Albert glared at him with eyes 
that had no " speculation " in them, and in broken par- 
agraphs said, '' They are after me !'' " They are try- 
ing to kill me !" " They want m}^ blood !" " They are 
setting the house on fire !" Head said he knew of 
TirrelPs somnambulistic fits and was not much sur- 
jjrised, but could not imagine what he was talking 
about. He took him by the collar and walked him 
around the stable, called him a d d fool, and want- 



TIRRELL AND HEAD. 121 

ed to know what ailed him. After exercising him in 
this style for some minutes Albert suddenly woke up 
and stared at Head and the lantern. His first in- 
quiry was, " George, how came I here? Have I been 
in the stable all night T still gazing with dazed eye- 
balls at Head and the lantern, and so and so forth, 
Vv'ith much additional testimony from the calm and 
plausible Head on the direct examination. The pro- 
tracted and severe cross-examination by crisp, sliarp 
old Parker did not shake him a particle. His recital 
of the stable scene produced a profound impression 
on the jury, one of whom subsequently told his coun- 
sel that it was mainly on this testimony that they 
acquitted the prisoner. 

Now for the real facts of the meeting of Head and 
Tirrell at the stable. The former was fully aware of 
the latter's relations with Maria. After perpetrating 
the murder and the arson, he walked over to Head's 
stable, arrived about the time stated by Plead, knocked 
at the door, made himself known, was admitted, told 
Head the particulars of the murder and the arson 
(without a speck of somnambulism !), consulted him as 
to the best mode of escape, and was driven in the ear- 
ly dawn to his home at We^^mouth in one of Head's 
close carriages. 

The public know the rest. Tirrell immediately 
sailed clandestinely to New Orleans, was indicted for 
the double crime in Boston, was brought thither un- 
der an executive requisition, and on two trials for his 
life was acquitted Ijy means of the manufactured tes- 
timony of George Head and the marvellous prat-pry 
of Rufus Choate. 
6 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Tlie Law.— Several Novel Cases.— Libel Suit at Tauntou.— The 
Vivid "Dream." — Criminal Prosecution for Libel at New Lon- 
don.— John T. Wait and Lafayette S. Foster for the State.— The 
Daniels's Case at Boston.— Cliarlcs G. Loring and Benjamin R. 
Curtis Counsel for the Defendant.— Choate for Plaintiffs. — A 
Patent Suit.— Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Hallett, and Horace 
E. Smith Counsel. — Joel Prentiss Bishop, the Law-writer.— John 
P. Hale as Lawyer and Senator. — Theodore Parker under In- 
dictment.— Hale his Counsel.— Parker on Fish and Phosphorus. 

In 184:4:-45, William Wilbar kept a large whole- 
sale and retail liquor store in Taunton, Mass. Benja- 
min Williams printed a lively temperance newspaper 
in that town. Under the similitude of " A Dream " 
he published a scathing article about Wilbar's store. 
The dream painted the establishment in the most ap- 
palling colors. The devil, fire and brimstone, liquid 
death and distilled damnation figured conspicuously 
in the lurid sketch. From the heads of the casks there 
flamed out labels bearing such inscriptions as " mur- 
der," " suicide," " arson," " soul-destroj^er ;" and the 
devil and AVilbar were on high seats in the counting- 
room, selling the casks to drunken customers. The 
dream went so far as to say that AVilbar carried on a 
lucrative trade in the business of picking the pockets 
of the poor, and putting them to a lingering death, 
and consigning their wives and children to the alms- 
house : ai)cl it inentioned the names of two of his vie- 



TWO NOVEL LIBEL SUITS. 123 

tims who had died sad deaths, and were remembered 
ill Taunton. It need hardly be said that these serious 
charges enmeshed the case in embarrassing difficul- 
ties. 

Wilbar sued Williams for libel, laying his damages 
at several thousand dollars. Williams retained me as 
his counsel. The ])laintiff xoas selling liqiioi' ivithoiit 
a license. I set up in defence that the publication 
was an allegory, and not to be construed literally, 
and that, so far as it confined its descriptions and pic- 
torials to Wilbar's business of liquor selling, he could 
not recover because, as he had no license, he was him- 
self violating the law, and therefore had no standing 
in court. The case w^as tried in the Supreme Court 
before Judge Samuel Hubbard and a jury. After a 
close contest of four days, the court ruled with me on 
the law, and my client got a verdict. The case was 
reported, and several thousand copies of the trial were 
sold. 

The next year I appeared for the defendant in a 
criminal prosecution for a similar libel, at ]^ew Lon- 
don, Conn. It bristled with difficult points, but I got 
a verdict for my client. The prosecution was ably 
conducted by District-attorney John T. Wait, the pres- 
ent representative in Congress, and La Fayette S. Fos- 
ter, afterwards LTnited States Senator, both of Nor- 
wich. 

I could find no reported case in this country or 
England that covered the precise ground in contro- 
versy at Taunton and New London. 

George Daniels, a slippery shoe manufacturer, had 
for a year or more been in the habit of making notes 



124 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

payable to the order of Alfred Daniels, his wealthy 
brother, and then forging Alfred's name on the back 
of the notes, and passing thein in Boston. George 
absconded, leaving notes to the amount of some 
$25,000 unpaid in the hands of his victims. I brought 
suit against Alfred Daniels in a single action on all 
these notes, simply declaring against him as endorser 
in the usual form. Eufus Choate was counsel with 
me. The defence was conducted by Cliarles G. Lor- 
ing and Benjamin E. Curtis. The latter was subse-. 
quently appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of 
the United States. AVe tried our case before Justice 
Wilde and a jury at Boston. AVe proved that from 
time to time some of the notes in suit and others just 
like them had been presented to Alfred Daniels, and 
he was asked if the}" were " all right," and that his 
replies were either evasive or that the notes would 
probably be looked after when they became due. AVo 
took the gi'ound that if Alfred Daniels's name was 
forged, and he knew it, and our clients did not, Alfred 
should then and there have exposed the forgery, and 
that from his failure to do this the jury might infer 
that Alfred had made George his agent for passing 
such notes. A¥e could find no case in the books like 
the one at bar. But Judge AVilde ruled for us. It 
had devolved on me to put in the testimony during 
the contest of four da3's. Mr. Clioate argued the case 
to the jury with his usual power and splendor. The 
jury gave the plaintiffs a verdict. 

I have said that my early acquaintance with ma- 
chinery aided me in the trial of patent suits. About 
1847. one Hovev and one Stevens, of Massachusetts, 



B, F. HALLETT. CHARLES SUMNEK. 125 

were rival manufacturers of a machine for cutting 
straw by spiral blades or knives. The blades revolved 
on their axis, and the straw passed between them and 
a cyhnder. The blades had to be ground so that 
when in motion they would describe a perfect circle. 
There was no patent on the straw-cutter, but Hovey 
had obtained a patent for a machine for grinding the 
knives or blades. Impelled by sharp competition, 
Stevens "pirated" Hovey's grinding machine. He 
sued Stevens, who applied to mc to defend him. 
There was no escape from heavy damages exce])t to 
invalidate Hovey's patent by showing that he was 
not the first inventor of the grinding-machine. I re- 
membered that thirty-three years before, in my fa- 
ther's woollen factory at Jewett City, they sheared 
broadcloth Avith spiral knives or blades that ojjerated 
like those in the straw-cutter, and I inferred that there 
must have been a machine for grinding them. I sent 
Stevens to Jewett City, where he learned that such a 
machine was formerly used there, but some twenty 
years since it had been bought by two men and taken 
to a factory at Hoosick Falls, ]Sr. Y. I sent Stevens 
there, where he found the two men, who hunted 
up in an outbuilding the dilapidated and abandoned 
grinding-machine, with the dried grit of the stone 
still adhering to it. It was exactly like Hovey's al- 
leged invention. Stevens brought the antique to Bos- 
ton, and at the trial the two men appeared as wit- 
nesses. Under appropriate pleadings the old machine 
cut a great ligure in the contest. The counsel for 
the plaintiff were Benjamin F. Hallett and Charles 
Sumner. The defence was conducted by Horace E. 



126 EANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

Smith and myself. Of course we whipped them out 
of their boots. 

Mr. Smith was for some time my partner at Bos- 
ton. For several years past he has been the accom- 
phshed dean of the Albany Law-school. Joel Pren- 
tiss Bishop, of Boston, the widely-known author of 
valuable treatises on the law, was admitted to the bar 
while a student in my office. He was at home in a 
library of rare old law-books. 

Mr. Sumner had read many volumes of law, and 
written some learned annotations thereon. But he 
seemed to liave little taste for the sharp conflicts of 
the forum, where the enduring laurels of an exacting 
profession are won. If he tendered " sage counsel in 
cumber," he carried not the " red hand in the foray." 
Though he studied patent law at the feet of Judge 
Story, he was not expert in comprehending and ap- 
plying those mechanical principles which arc so fre- 
quently involved in cases that arise in that depart- 
ment. Pie acted wisely, therefore, when he retired 
from the bar, and devoted himself to the delivery of 
orations on the platform and speeches in the Senate. 

Mr. Hallet, who led for the plaintiff in the trial 
above mentioned, was a wiry, pertinacious advocate. 
He was not familiar with the intricacies of patent law, 
and handled mechanical principles very clumsily ; but 
he was a sturdy opponent to grapple with even when 
he was on the weaker side. This was partly due to 
the fact that his cuticle was unusually thick. For a 
while he conducted a newspaper in Boston, and cham- 
pioned some valuable reforms. He subsequently be- 
came an active Democrat, and President Pierce ap- 



JOHN P. HALE. 127 

pointed liim United States Attorney for the District 
of Massachusetts. 

John P. Hale is not so well known as a lawyer as 
a Free-soil Senator. In his younger days, however, 
he was prominent at the New Hampshire bar, and in 
later years occasionally led in the trial of important 
causes at Boston. 

One of the boldest of the earlv blows ao^ainst the 
slave power from a public man was struck by Hale in 
New Hampshire in ISii, He was in Congress, and 
was the regular Democratic candidate for re-election. 
The pending issue was the annexation of Texas. First 
in a pungent letter, and then in a powerful speech, he 
declared against annexation. The leaders of the De- 
mocracy rose upon him, and the state was soon all 
aflame. I went up from Boston to help the robust 
rebel. After a long struggle Hale was defeated for 
Congress, but Dover sent him to the Legislature, and 
his services in the Free-soil cause were soon rewarded 
by his election to the United States Senate. 

Hale was a novice in Anti-slaver}^ literature, and I 
assisted in preparing two or three of his early speech- 
es in the Senate. He was indolent, a brilliant de- 
claimer, but an indifi'erent reasoner. Surrounded by 
foes, it was his proverbial jollity that protected him 
from assault. He bubbled over with wit and humor. 
I entered his room at Washington one warm evening, 
where an inextinguishable coal fire, fed by a stupid 
servant, had run the thermometer up to about one 
hundred degrees. He was stripped to his skin ; the 
perspiration Avas dripping from his chin ; a great ])ile 
of documents was before him, which he was industri- 



123 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

ously franking. Putting out his hand, he said, " This 
is tlie penalty paid for greatness." 

Ho told me this fact, which illustrates a peculiarity 
of that extraordinar}^ man, Theodore Parker. In a 
trial in the Federal Court at Boston which grew out 
of the famous attempt to rescue by force a fugitive 
slave from the clutches of the law, Hale was counsel 
for Mr. Parker, and for two weeks his guest. Twice 
each day Parker had baked fish served (with no meat), 
because this diet furnished, as he said, phosphorus 
for the brain. It was his ordinary custom to have 
baked fish only once daily, but, to meet the strain of 
the trial. Hale, who hated fish in any form, was re- 
quired to lay in a supply of phosphorus at every 
breakfast and dinner while the legal conflict lasted. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Law.— Bench and Bar of tlie Empire State.— Kent, Spencer, 
and other Eminent Jurists.- Four Great Lawyers of Columbia 
County. — The Power of Elislia Williams over a Jurj^— Henry 
R. Storrs. — Lawyers and Trials at Eocliester.— Sclleck Bough- 
ton. — Jesse Hawley, the Land Surveyor, Foreshadowing the Erie 
Canal. —Charles M. Lee.— General "Mad" Anthony Wayne's 
Storming of Stony Point Saves a Counterfeiter from the Stato 
Prison.— John Griffin, the Rough Judge of Allegheny County, 
Sits down on a Dandy Attorney. — Alvan Stewart. — Some 
Albany Law-^'ers.— The Famous Firm of Hill, Porter, & Cag- 
gar. — Quirk, Gammon, & Snap. — Eseck Cowan's Rare Law 
Library. — Marcus T.Reynolds.— Samuel Stevens. — Daniel Cady. 
— Joshua A. Spencer. 

I HAVE always felt at home with the judges and 
lawyers of the state of New York, for it was with 
them that I first began to be acquainted sixty years 
ago. 

The old Supreme Court, the Court of Errors, and 
the Court of A^^tpeals, in the opinions pronounced by 
Kent, Spencer, Thompson, Nelson, Cowen, Sutherland, 
Bronson, Denio, and their associates, illuminated all 
branches of the law in a style worthy of the best ef- 
forts of Mansfield and Marshall, The decisions of 
the courts of New York have, from the first volume 
of Johnson downward, held superior rank in the judi- 
cial tribunals of the Union, and have been quoted 
with approbation at London, Paris, and Berlin, In 
1814, James Kent, tlie new chancellor, took his seat 
6* 



130 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

in one of the small rooms of the capitol. Throwing 
its doors wide open, he caused the proceedings of the 
court to be regularly reported, and thus poured a 
flood of light along the track of equity jurisprudence 
in this country. It would be in vain to attempt to 
give the names of the great lawyers of New York 
who have aided the bench in erecting its judicial sys- 
tem on solid foundations. The bench, of course, has 
been selected from the bar. Besides this, the profes- 
sion in 'New York has furnished one chief -just ice and 
five associate justices in the Supreme Court of the 
United States, and five attorney-generals. 

I have before me a rapidly prepared and imperfect- 
ly presented article on this subject, Avhich appeared 
in the appendix to the eighteenth volume of Bar- 
bour's New York Supreme Court Reports. Perhaps 
it will repay perusal. 

Columbia County was the birthplace of four distin- 
guished lawyers — Elislia Williams, Daniel Cady,"VVill- 
iam "\Y. Yan Ness, and Martin Yan Buren. I listened 
to them all except Judge Yan Ness, who had a great 
reputation for a peculiar style of attractive eloquence, 
though Williams was his superior before a jury. This 
scene was described to me by Mr. Cady, but so long 
ago that it has somewhat faded in my memory. He 
was junior counsel with Williams, who led for the 
plaintiff in a trial which involved a large tract of 
land bordering on the Hudson Eiver. The plaintiff's 
recovery depended on sustaining the correctness of a 
line run by two surveyors, just after the Revolution- 
ary War, in avhich the}^ had won honor as officers. 
At the time of the trial thev had been dead about 



ELISHA WILLIAMS BEFOEE A JUKY. 131 

twenty years, but their memory was revered in the 
counties along the Hudson. 

In addressing the jury, the defendant's counsel ve- 
hemently denounced the two officers, attacking at 
great length their capacity as surveyors and their 
characters as men. And now came Williams's turn 
to reply. The court-room was so densely packed, es- 
pecially near the door, that the audience reached down 
the stairs into the street. Williams vindicated the 
two surveyors and scathed their traducer in glowing 
terms, or, as Mr. Cady called it, in " thunder-clap elo- 
quence." He referred to their unblemished reputa- 
tion, their services in the struggle for independence, 
and described their personal appearance and the mil- 
itary uniform they had worn in the field. He wished 
they could be there, and take the stand, and confound 
their assailant. The audience had been wrought up 
to the highest pitch, wdien AVilliams, assuming a slow, 
solemn air, said, amid breathless silence : " The im- 
posing iigures of the revered patriots rise before me ; 
I feel the approach of their awful presence." Lower- 
ing his voice and bowing his head as if listening, he 
continued, '' I hear their footsteps on the stairs. They 
will take the witness-box and s]3ealv for themselves." 
Then suddenly turning towards the stairs, and wav- 
ing his hand, he exclaimed, in a thrilling tone, " Make 
way for them! They come! They come!" The 
crowd around the door opened to the right and left, 
and the twelve jurors rose and stood on tiptoe to see 
two men enter the court-room who had been in their 
graves twenty 3xars. 

I heard this great advocate try an important cause 



132 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS, 

at Kochester as early as about 1828. The opposing 
counsel was Henry R. Storrs of Oneida, who was rap- 
idly advancing to the front rank of the profession. 
It was a contest between giants. Each possessed rare 
oratorical gifts. Storrs was the more wary and argu- 
mentative ; Williams, the more extravagant and im- 
passioned. 

Anecdotes of minor lawyers illustrate the vicis- 
situdes of the profession quite as well as elaborate 
sketches of its eminent members. When I was clerk 
of the courts in Eochester, Selleck Boughton was one 
of the queerest practitioners at the Monroe bar. He 
had been a constable, was turning gray, dressed like 
a scullion, weighed about one hundred pounds, chewed 
a whole paper of tobacco at once, had studied law in 
a narrow sphere, wielded a sharp metaphysical mind, 
and would stand and split hairs from morning till 
night. A fellow was indicted for trespassing on lands, 
and Boughton defended him. Of course the title to 
the lands was in question. Jesse Hawley, an old citi- 
zen of Rochester, was a surveyor of high repute, and 
had run the lines of most of the tracts in that region. 
Even before De Witt Clinton had fully conceived the 
idea, Mr. Hawley wrote a series of articles in a Can- 
andaigua newspaper in support of the feasil^ility of 
constructing a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson 
River. He was a witness for the prosecution on the 
trial I have mentioned, and his testimony pressed 
hard on the defendant. Boughton objected to every 
question put to Hawley by the district attorney, 
and argued each objection at an interminable length, 
Hawley meanwhile resting. There was plenty of 



BOUGHTON. — HAWLEY. LEE. 133 

quaint humor in Ilawley's mental composition. Dur- 
ing one of Bougliton's speeches the badgered witness 
slid into a seat by me. " At the Day of Judgment," 
said he, " I intend to get my case put on the calendar 
right below Selleck Bougliton's. I shall never be 
placed in peril, for when he is on trial he Avill stand 
and object to all eternity." 

Charles M. Lee, who figured at the Eochester bar 
at the same time with Boughton, exhibited a vocif- 
erous style of oratory that made a deep iiiipression 
upon bucolic jurors from the rural towns. A revolu- 
tionary soldier was indicted for passing counterfeit 
money. He had followed General " Mad " Anthony 
Wayne up the craggy steep of Stony Point, on the 
Hudson, in the dark night of July 16, 1779, when that 
fortress was carried by storm. Lee defended the 
silver-haired veteran on his trial. The evidence against 
him was clear, and there was not a shadow of doubt 
of his guilt. Lee summed up the case with rare ve- 
hemence, graphically described the bloody attack on 
Stony Point, and with tears dripping down his cheeks 
implored the jury to acquit the old soldier. So plain 
was the case for the people that the district attorney 
spoke barely ten minutes. It was not then known 
that the father of the foreman of the jury had stood 
shoulder to shoulder with the defendant in the peril- 
ous night when Wayne captured the British strong- 
hold. The jury were out an hour. When they re- 
turned the clerk said, " Gentlemen of the jury, have 
you agreed upon a verdict V " We have," replied the 
foreman. " Do you find the prisoner at the bar guil- 
ty, or not guilty ?" '^ JSTot guilty, because he helped 
to storm Stony Point !" shouted the foreman. 



134 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

In those early days justice in tliat portion of the 
country was sometinies administered with a rough 
hand. John Griffin was First Judge of the Court of 
Common Pleas in Allegheny County, then a rude fron- 
tier settlement. In size and manner he w^as a proto- 
type of Abraham Lincoln. He dressed shabbily, Avas 
a good lawyer, and carried a clear head on his shoul- 
ders. I was summoned to Judge Griffin's court as a 
witness, with some records from the Monroe Clerk's 
Office, in a case where certified copies would not an- 
swer the purpose. One of the counsel was a loqua- 
cious young limb of the law, of small stature, from 
another county, who dressed like a dude of the pres- 
ent era. He raised objections at every step in the 
trial, which the grim judge invariably overruled, 
"whereupon the pert attorney would keep on arguing, 
and wind up by expressing his regret for feeling com- 
pelled to differ with his honor. The judge endured 
this for about the tenth time, when, at the close of an 
unusually ridiculous episode. Griffin asked the dandy 
if lie was through talking on that point. He said he 
Avas. " Sit down, then, and shut your mouth, you 

little d d fool !" responded the judge, in a loud 

voice, and with a blow on the bench that made the 
lawyer's head swim. 

I hardly dare lift my pen in an attempt to outline 
the commanding figure of Alvan Stewart as a law- 
yer, for my personal knowledge of his marvellous 
victories in a field where he shone conspicuously as 
a leader for a quarter of a century, was quite lim- 
ited. Moreover, his participation in the Anti-slavery 
conflict, when I was fighting b}^ his side, naturally 



ALVAN STEWART — ALBANY LAWYERS. 135 

tended to eclipse in my eye his earlier fame at the 
bar. I knew enough of him, however, to say that he 
was an unusually well-read lawyer, had studied the 
profession as a science, and in some lines of the prac- 
tice, especially before juries, he had no superior in 
central I^ew York, His quaint humor was equal to 
his profound learning. He was skilled in a peculiar 
and indescribable kind of argumentation, wit, and sar- 
casm that made him remarkably successful in " laugh- 
ing a case out of court ;" and lucky would it be for 
the opposing counsel if he did not have to go out with 
his case. Even to the present day the dozen counties 
around Otsego and Oneida are fertile in traditions of 
the forensic triumphs of Mr. Stewart in every depart- 
ment of the law. I never saw this extraordinary man 
try an action in court, but before Anti-slavery con- 
ventions in several states I heard him argue grave 
and intricate constitutional questions with consum- 
mate ability. 

Though Albany has always been the judicial centre 
of the state, it was more exclusively such prior to the 
Constitution of 1846 than it has since been. Even 
for a considerable time after the adoption of that in- 
strument it continued to be the chief seat of this de- 
partment of the government. This kept in practice 
at Albany, during the lirst sixty years of the present 
century, a body of lawyers who had no superiors at 
the New York bar. Whoever looks through the re- 
ports of Johnson, Cowen, Wendell, Hill, Denio, and 
some of the later authors, will find them liberally 
sprinkled with the names of Albany lawyers that ap- 
peared as counsel in the cases. For the latter half of 



136 EAKDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

this period I kneAV many of these lawyers, and some 
of them intimately. I heard before courts and juries 
the foremost in this long procession of learned and 
eloquent advocates, from Abraliam Yan Vechten to 
Nicholas Hill. There is space to refer to only a few 
of them. 

In the later stages of this cjxle one of the ablest 
law firms in Albany was composed of l^icholas Hill, 
John K. Porter, and Peter Cagger. They did a busi- 
ness so extensive that it brought them in contact 
with the profession all over the state. Hill had been 
trained in the olRce of Eseck Cowen, at Saratoga 
Springs. Cowen certainly had the largest law library 
in the state, and proba^bly in the Union. I think it 
Avas Hill who told me that Cowen possessed a copy 
of every law book issued by an American author 
(Statutes not included) except one, and that he had 
ransacked the country to find the missing work. Af- 
ter Judge Cowen left the Supreme Bench Hill brought 
a liberal selection of his books to Albany. 

Nicholas Hill was one of the most profound and 
successful counsellors that ever appeared before the 
court m hanco in New York. The members of its 
highest tribunal had entire respect for his opinions. 
He was the embodiment of lucid logic, though per- 
haps rather too refined in his methods of reasoning 
for the comprehension of minds of ordinary mould. 
Mr. Porter was an ornate orator, as smooth as oil in 
his diction, picturesque and dramatic at times, and 
wielded great sway over juries, whether sunmioned 
from the Capitoline precincts or the Helderberg hills. 
]Mr. Cagger, his veins pulsating with the Avarniest 



HILL, POETER, & CAGGEIi. 137 

Celtic blood, went off in the court-room like a liair- 
trie-o-er on the duelling^-o-round. An attorney who 
hoped to circumvent Caggers moving affidavits on a 
motion at Chambers needed a keen eye, a sharp ])en, 
and a facile client. 

Everybody in Albany knew Hill, Porter, and Cag- 
ger, at least by sight. At the time of the occurrence 
which I am now to describe their offices Avere on the 
second floor of a building in State Street. In the 
room above was a photographer's establishment. 
Specimens of the artist's work were displayed at the 
foot of the wide stairs by the sidewallv — the stairs 
that led up to the law-offices. As a captivating ad- 
vertisement of his vocation (then quite new) the pho- 
tographer hung up a large plate in the vestibule con- 
taining admirable likenesses of Hill, Porter, and Cag- 
ger, the two foruier sitting in chairs, and the latter 
standing behind them with a hand on the shoulder of 
each. The picture was so perfect, and the counte- 
nances of the three so characteristic, that their friends 
laughed to look at it. The famous novel of Warren, 
the English barrister, entitled " Ten Thousand a Year," 
wherein are depicted the arts, the loquacities, and the 
rascalities of the law-firm of " Quirk, Gammon, & 
Snap," was then in the hands of everybody that read 
novels. Many American lawyers that rarely looked 
into works of fiction were laughing and crying over 
" Ten Thousand a Year," alternately sneering at the 
metaphysical blockhead Quirk, detesting the oily hyp- 
ocrite Gammon, and despising the sliarp rogue Snap. 
One night a Avag procured a printed label containing 
the words •■' Quirk, Gammon, S: Snap," and slipped 



13S EANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

it into the picture that bore the familiar Ukenesses of 
Hill, Porter, and Cagger. The next morning the three 
law3^ers (taking an old friend along) reached the en- 
trance to their offices in company. An amused crowd 
cumbered the sidewalk. The lawyers pushed tlirough. 
Cagger' s eye fell on the label. He exploded with an- 
ger. " It was an outrage ! A detective should ferret 
out the perpetrator, and he should be criminally pros- 
ecuted for libel ! The photographer must instantly 
throw the thing into the street !" Porter seemed to 
be meditating points in the eloquent speech he could 
make to a jury in a civil action for damages. Mean- 
while the philosophic Hill stood, with folded arms, 
looking at the picture. Soon he burst into a laugh 
that shook him from head to foot. " :N"o !" said he, 
" not a bit of it ! It shall remain as it is. It is the 
most capital hit I ever heard of. It describes us ex- 
actly. It is the best advertisement we shall have in 
years. Let it stand." 

I cannot do justice to that wittiest and most sarcas- 
tic of advocates, Marcus T. Reynolds, nor to Samuel 
Stevens, who had few equals as a special pleader un- 
der the old practice, and at a later period excelled as 
a patent lawyer. I witnessed an amusing scene be- 
tween Eeynolds and Stevens before Chief-justice Sam- 
uel l^elson. They were arguing a motion. The pa- 
pers had come to each from remote country attorneys. 
Reynolds possessed an extraordinary measure of im- 
perturbable self-possession. In the hurry of the mo- 
ment he had scarcely glanced at his papers, and he 
caught a wrong idea as to the side on which he was 
retained. He opened, and in his terse and pointed style 



EEYKOLDS. — STEVEXS. — CADY. SPENCEE. 13 'J 

was arguing effectively against his own client. Ste- 
vens stared at him, looked at his papers to make sure 
that he liimself had not made a mistake, and then 
listened, and again stared at Reynolds. The strange 
manner of his antagonist arrested the attention of 
Eeynolds just as he was about to close Ms opening, 
and he took a steady look at his papers, and saw that 
he was speaking on the wrong side. "Without the 
slightest change of countenance, and with perfect 
coolness of manner, he said, " Your honor, I have 
been tracing in the clearest language I can command 
the line of argument that m}' learned opponent will 
no doubt pursue, and I shall now proceed to show 
how utterly futile and untenable it is." He then de- 
livered an unusually powerful address in behalf of his 
own client, and left Stevens to take care of his side of 
the case as he pleased. 

Daniel Cady appeared so often in the courts at the 
state capital that he might fairly be called an Albany 
lawyer. He went to the roots of every case he tried 
or argued. He dealt little in rhetorical embellish- 
ments, but wielded a ponderous logic that ground 
adversaries to powder. Unless his case were utterly 
hopeless he always came off victor in the hand-to- 
hand conflicts at ^^isl jPrius. Joshua A. Spencer, 
of Utica, an accomplished advocate, whose name is 
sprinkled all through the reports, told me he had tried 
two hundred jury cases against Mr. Cady, and that 
whenever he succeeded in winning a verdict from his 
secretive, wary adversary, he never felt sure that a 
mine was not to be sprung under him and engulf him, 
until he had obtained from the clerk a certified copy of 



liO RANDOM KECOLLECTIOXS. 

the verdict, and the court had adjourned for the day. 
Mr. Stevens, of whom I have spoken, argued appeals in 
banco with an amphtude of learning and logic second 
only to Nicholas Hill. A suit for libel between two 
surgeons, wherein Cady and Stevens were counsel for 
the bitter belligerents, had at last reached the Court 
of Errors, after passing through a long series of cir- 
cumlocutions in the lower tribunals that covered sev- 
eral years. Mr. Stevens argued for the appellants, 
consuming a day. Mr, Cady replied, and, as my in- 
formant said, he took Stevens up by the collar in the 
first sentence, and never let his feet touch the carpet 
for four hours. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Law. —The Corning and Burden Spike Case. — Seward, 
Blatcliford, and Stevens Counsel. — Reuben II. Walworth, Ref- 
eree. — Jarndyce rs. Jarnd^'ce. — Clients Erect Federal Buildings 
at Buffalo and Oswego, and Sue the Government. — Speaker 
Grow, R. E. Fenton, and William Steele Ilolman Intervene. — 
Captain Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Fist Fight. — His Son, 
Cornelius Jeremiah, is Sued, and Blows his Brains out. — The 
Controversy over the Commodore's Will. — The Spencers. — 
John C. Spencer. — His Acute Legal Mind. — Interview with his 
Son, who was E.xccuted for Alleged Mutiny on Board The 
Somers. — Chief -justice Ambrose Spencer. — John C. Spencer 
Concocts the Canal Bill of 1851. 

After I removed from Boston to Senecca Falls, in 
1847, I became associated in the famous suit of the 
Burden Compan}^ against the Corning Company of 
Troy and Albany, brought for an alleged violation 
of the patent of the former by the latter for the man- 
ufacture of hook-headed spikes, used for fastening T 
rails to ties on railroad tracks. The case had been 
carried on appeal to the Supreme Court at Washing- 
ton, which had given a decision in favor of the plain- 
tiffs, and had issued the usual order to the Circuit 
Court in New York to enter final judgment for the 
plaintiffs, and then send it to a master, to take an 
account of the damages and fix the amount thereof. 
Lawyers will understand this line of proceedings. 

The case had been a long time reaching this point. 
Samuel Stevens, my associate, was leading counsel 



142 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

for the plaintiffs, and Governor Seward for the de- 
fendants, with whom was Samuel Blatchford. We 
tried in vain for a good while to agree upon some one 
to take the account. Judge Samuel Nelson, of the 
Supreme Court, finally referred the matter to ex- 
Chancellor Walworth. And now commenced a series 
of interminable delays, Avhich threw Jarndyce vs. 
Jarndyce, of Bleak House fame, quite into the shade. 
Burden, an ardent man, believed the proceedings 
would be closed in three months, and that, as the de- 
fendants had made an enormous amount of spikes, 
the plaintiffs vrould be awarded at least $250,000 
damages. Alas! Burden had not carefully studied 
Jarndyce or Walworth. 

The case went on, it stood still, it went on, it stood 
still, till all tlie original counsel were frozen out of 
it or had died. But the tough ex-chancellor, Avho 
was drawing heavy fees as he went along, was like 
Jefferson's Federalist office-holders— he neither died 
nor resigned. And so the years rolled away till the 
constantly accumulating testimony reached tens of 
thousands of folios, and being put in print from time 
to time filled many great volumes. An incident or 
two will illustrate the mode of taking evidence. The 
ex-chancellor held the reference in his office in Sara- 
too-a, where all the witnesses appeared. One witness 
came from Troy, and was sworn. At Saratoga he 
became acquainted with a young lady, married her, 
and was a father before he left the stand. Another 
witness was sworn. Burden saw him well under way, 
and then sailed for Europe to take out certain pat- 
ents, in foreign countries. He travelled extensively 



REUBEN HYDE WALWOETII. 143 

for this purpose in Great Britain and on the Conti- 
nent, and after an absence of sevei'al months he re- 
turned and found the same witness still testifying. 
These facts will serve as specimens. After w^asting 
years on the case, Walworth decided that the plain- 
tiffs were not entitled to recover any damages what- 
ever. An appeal was taken from this decision, and 
what then became of the matter I do not know. 

AValworth for nineteen years occupied the seat 
which James Kent had adorned. He Avas a night- 
mare on the jurisprudence of New York. One of the 
moving causes for the adoption of the Constitution 
of 1S4-0 was to rid the state of the Court of Chancery 
and of Reuben Hyde Walworth as Chancellor. 

Clients of mine erected for the federal govern- 
ment at Buffalo and Oswego buildings for post-offices, 
custom-houses, and other purposes. In 1855-56 I 
brought suit for damages in the Court of Claims for 
violation of our contracts. The government fought 
desperately, and the conflict was long and weary. 
The court awarded my clients $36,000. I took the 
case to Congress, which increased the award to about 
$80,000. This loas the only case in which Congress ever 
increased an award of that court. The amount w^e ob- 
tained was fair and just. The government, without 
the slightest regard to the merits of the case, first 
threw the weight of its influence against us in the 
court, and then in both the Senate and the House. 
My success in Congress was mainly owing to Eeuben 
E. Fenton, William S. Holman, and Speaker Galusha 
A. Grow, wdiile I received valuable aid from Senator 
■Daniel Clark, of New Hampshire. 



144 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

In the summer of 1S3S or 1839 I took passage at 
New York on a Yanderbilt steamboat plying through 
Long Island Sound. A Southern gentleman with a 
colored chattel and a large trunk in his train violated 
the rules by putting the trunk in his stateroom. Soon 
after passing Hell Gate the deckmaster pulled the 
trunk out. A scuffle ensued, and the Southerner 
seized the deckmaster by the collar, the negro lower- 
ing darkly in a corner as a reserved corps. A crowd 
of passengers were spectators of this sharp tussle, in 
which the Yanderbilt forces were getting worsted. 
Suddenly a well-knit man dashed into the ring with 
a battle-cry that sounded exactly like swearing. In 
an instant his coat was off and his fists doubled. Just 
at this point the colored contingent Avheeled into 
line. The new-comer dealt a blow that set the ne- 
gro spinning, and then moved at double-quick on 
the Southerner's works. Tlie affair was rapidly ap- 
proaching the precincts of a rough-and-tumble fight 
between the four combatants when the passengers in- 
tervened and proposed an adjournment. The motion 
was carried. The trunk remained outside the state- 
room, and the other chattel retired to repair his nose. 
This was the first time I ever saw Captain Cornelius 
Yanderbilt. 

About forty years after this I was retained to col- 
lect for a client a just debt of $10,000 from Cornehus 
Jeremiah Yanderbilt, a son of the commodore, which 
had someho^Y become mixed in the contest over the 
commodore's estate. Patient negotiations having 
failed to secure a settlement, I brought suit against C. 
J. Yanderbilt to recover the debt. The summons was 



THE YANDERBILTS. — THE SPENCERS. 145 

served in the morning, and in the evening of the 
same day he blew his brains ont. Poor Cornehus ! 
lie had generous quahties, and in mien and manners 
was a closer copy of his father than were any of the 
other children. The effort to collect this debt brought 
me unwillingly into the possession of a mass of so- 
called facts concernino; the famous controversy about 
the commodore's will, some of which were true and 
some of which were false. They abounded in the 
dramatic, and contained materials for more than one 
tragedy, comedy, and novel. I shall not soil these 
pages with any of this scandalous matter. The fam- 
ily fight of these coarse-grained people over the old 
commodore's dead body was one of the most unsavory 
in the annals of American litigation. Four of the 
conspicuous characters in that conflict have since 
gone to that undiscovered country from whose bourne 
no traveller returns. It required all the learning, 
skill, and forbearance of Mr. Surrogate Calvin to hold 
the scales of justice with an even hand among the 
fierce combatants. 

In January, 1S41, on m}^ return from Europe, I was 
on the way to Eochester. One of my chance travel- 
Ung companions was a son of John C. Spencer. AVe 
stopped overnight at Geneva, and Spencer brought 
down from Ilobart College his j^ounger brother for 
an evening call. lie was a student at Hobart. His 
manner was easy, and his conversation unusually in- 
teresting for one so young. This Avas the youth who 
was put to death by Captain Alexander Slidell Mac- 
kenzie, in December, 1842, for an alleged mutiny at 
sea on board The Somers. I have always thought 
. 7 



146 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

t 

that his fate "was cruel and unjust. Mackenzie was the 
brother of the notorious Senator, John Shdell. The 
elder of tlie Spencer brothers told cock-and-bull sto- 
ries of a recent trip to England as bearer of Federal 
despatches, and his possession of the laAV library of 
his grandfather, Ambrose Spencer, with notes on the 
margins of the volumes by the famous chief -justice, 
all of which I subsequently learned was a draft on the 
imagination. 

John C. Spencer was for a long period one of the 
heads of the bar in western New York. I first heard 
him at Kochester, in 1829-30, when he was special 
counsel for the state in the prosecution of the Anti- 
masonic cases. He was a wary and dangerous adver- 
sary in the trial of actions that involved nice legal 
distinctions, and where falsehood was curiouslv inter- 
twined with truth. His clear head and plastic hand 
had much to do in the revision of the New York Stat- 
utes. Gerrit Smith told me that pretty much all he 
learned when a wild young man, during the short 
time he was in Spencer's office as a law student, was 
a method of blotting out writing so skilfully that what 
was obliterated could by no possibility be ascertained. 

It was the acute mind of Mr. Spencer which de- 
vised that cunning evasion of the Constitution of ISTew 
York known as the Canal Bill of 1S51. The long 
struggle over this measure in the legislature and the 
courts will be referred to in another place. Mr. Spen- 
cer's versatile talents were always in request by his 
party. He held more offices than any citizen of New 
York, except perhaps Martin Van Buren and John A. 
Dix, 



SONS IN THE PKOFESSION. 147 

I close the chapters on Law and Lawyers by re- 
marking that I have shown my regard for the pro- 
fession by inducting four of my sons into its intrica- 
cies. Daniel Cady Stanton was for one year a super- 
visor of registration, and for two years a member of 
the legislature of Louisiana, in the turbulent era of 
reconstruction. Henry Stanton, a graduate of the 
law school of Columbia College, is now the official 
attorney of the Northern Pacific Eailway Company. 
Gerrit Smith Stanton and Robert Livingston Stanton 
are also graduates of the Columbia School. The for- 
mer cultivates the soil, and dispenses the law in Iowa. 
The latter practises his profession in the city of New 
York. The reader who peruses the miscellaneous 
matter that is to follow will discover that much of it 
relates to lawyers. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Dr. Samuel B. Woodward and Senator Albert H. Tracy. —Close 
Resemblance to Washington and Jefferson. — Webster and the 
Conscience Whigs in Faneuil Ilall in 1846. — Crittenden on 
Clay and Webster. — Clay before the Supreme Court. — Mrs. 
James Madison.— John Sargeant.— Chief-justice Taney.— Clay 
in the Senate. — A Galaxy of Talents. — "Biddle and the Bank." 
— The Sub-Treasury Question.— Clay's Speech in New York. — 
His Personal Magnetism. — His Funeral Pageant. — A Cluster of 
Political Rivals. — George P. Barker. — Sanford E. Church. — 
Church in the New York Assembly in 1842. — Hoffman, Dix, 
Seymour, and other Members. — Church makes Barker Attorney- 
General. — Anecdote of Church and James W. Nye at tlie Buf- 
falo Convention in 1848. 

It is natural to desire to see distinguished persons ; 
and next to seeing tlie very individuals is the privi- 
lege of conversing with their doubles. Who does not 
wish that he could behold two men who look and 
talk as Washington and Jefferson did ? I boarded for 
some months in Boston at the United States Hotel. 
Whenever he visited the city, Dr. Samuel B. Wood- 
ward, Principal of the Insane As^dum at Worcester, 
dined at that hotel. As he walked erect and majes- 
tic through the long room to the head of the table, 
every knife and fork rested, and all e^^es centred on 
him. He received similar notice when appearing as 
an expert witness in the courts. The reason was this : 
Young men Avho saw George Washington after he 
passed middle life traced the very close resemblance 



DE. WOODWAKD. — SENATOR TRACEY. 149 

between him and Dr. Woodward, Aware of the 
cause, the doctor was flattered by these attentions. 
Forty-five years ago, I spent a long evening at Buf- 
falo in the company of Albert II. Tracey, who had 
previously been prominent in Congress and the State 
Senate. In the latter body he often pronounced the 
guiding decision of the old Court of Errors. In mien, 
size, bearing, visage, and conversation, he was the 
counterpart of Thomas Jefferson when about the 
same age. Mr. Tracy was fully conscious of this like- 
ness between him and the author of the Declaration 
of Independence. 

The AVhig State Convention of Massachusetts met 
in the fall of 1846, at Faneuil Hall. It was during 
the Mexican war. The Whig party in that state had 
long been seconding the Presidential aspirations of 
Mr. Webster. An element known as " Conscience 
Whigs " elected several delegates to the convention, 
among whom were Stephen C. Phillips, Horace Mann, 
Charles Allen, and Charles Francis Adams, all good 
debaters and full of courage. They offered resolu- 
tions about the war and slavery that did not run in 
tlie Websterian grooves. In the afternoon the discus- 
sion waxed warm, and the revolting faction (the coun- 
terpart of the New York Barnburners) were getting 
the best of it in their encounter with the Conserva- 
tives. Charles Francis Adams (I think it was) was 
on the platform, throwing out short, pungent sen- 
tences that flew like arrows through the hall. I was 
a close observer of the scene from the gallery, which 
looked down upon the rostrum, but had not noticed 
that two prominent Whig leaders had left an hour 



150 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

before. The convention sat with its back to the great 
door of the liall, around which was a crowd of spec- 
tators. Wliile Adams was speaking, a clapping of 
hands suddenly broke out near the door, and instant- 
ly there emerged from the excited throng the grand 
form of AVebster leaning on the arms of Abbott Law- 
rence and Kobert C. Winthrop. A shout of " Web- 
ster !" went up from the floor, and three cheers 
bounded to tlie roof. The two messengers found the 
Great Expounder (so it was reported) at dinner. His 
cheek was a little flashed. Adams subsided, and Web- 
ster ascended the platform. His first sentence was, 
'' I like to meet the Whigs of Massachusetts in State 
Convention assembled, because their proceedings al- 
ways breathe the spirit of Liberty." He hesitated a 
second or two before pronouncing the word " liberty," 
but ^vhen it came out it seemed to weigh ten pounds. 
It was a shot right between wind and water. He 
spoke briefl}^ closing substantially as follows: "In 
the dark and troubled night that surrounds us, I see 
no light by which to guide our course except in the 
united action of the united Whig party of the United 
States." 

The resolutions of the Conscience AVhigs were laid 
on the table ; but in due time the recoil came, and six 
years later Daniel Webster turned his face to the 
wall at Marshfield, and died, because he could not ob- 
tain a nomination to the Presidency, while these 
Whigs marched onward with the procession that ul- 
timately saved the Union and destroyed slavery. 

A dozen years or more after this event in Faneuil 
Hall, I happened to be one of a dinner-party in Wash- 



CEITTENDEN ON CLAY AND WEBSTER. 151 

iiigton where John J. Crittenden and Thomas Corwin 
were the shining lights. The conversation turned on 
Clay and Webster, both of whom were then in their 
graves. Mr. Crittenden said : " We all (?. e., the Clay 
Whigs) desired to see Clay and Webster elected to 
the Presidency, and we felt that to accomplish this 
object it was necessary that Mr. Clay should come 
first, but we were never able to make Webster and 
his personal friends see this, and therefore neither of 
them won the prize." The foUowiug anecdote was 
vouched for by competent authority. In the stormy 
days of John Tyler, while AVebster was Secretary of 
State, and Euf us Choate was in the Senate, and Con- 
gress was in extra session in the fall of 1841, the ques- 
tion of chartering a United States bank was shaking 
the country. Mr. Clay, as chairman of the Finance 
Committee in the Senate, was pressing the measure, 
and Tyler was resisting it. A conference of leading 
Whig Senators was held. Clay, with lofty mien, was 
for waging relentless war on the accidental president, 
who had stepped into the White House over the dead 
body of General Harrison. Choate again and again 
told what Webster thought ought to be done. Clay 
was restive, and exclaimed, " Who cares a d — n about 
what Webster thinks V In 1844, Clay was the Whig 
candidate for President. The tariff and the annexa- 
tion of Texas, wherein he had conspicuously figured, 
were the leading issues of the canvass. On a mem- 
orable occasion in the campaign, Webster made an 
elaborate speech, but never once mentioned Clay's 
name. It must have severely taxed his ingenuity to 
avoid it. 



152 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

These are fair illustrations of the relations in which 
these eminent statesmen stood to^yards each other dur- 
ing the last ten years of their lives. 

I went to Washington in February, 1848, to attend 
to business in the Supreme Court, I heard Mr. Clay 
argue a case. For two hours his sonorous voice pealed 
through the corridors, and delighted a great throng. 
Mrs. James Madison sat by his side. The venerable 
lady, who was dressed quite young for her years, was 
gallantly complimented by Mr. Clay, and seemed as 
]3roud of the orator as she Avas thirty-six years before, 
when he championed the administration of her emi- 
nent husband in Congress during the war with Eng- 
land. The counsel that argued the otlier side of the 
case was John Sergeant of Philadelphia, who had 
confronted Cla}^ in Congress in the Missouri contro- 
versy, but had been on the ticket with him as Whig 
candidate for the Vice-Presidency in 1832. It was an 
interesting group of celebrated historical characters, 
especially when we include Chief-justice Taney, the 
Secretary of the Treasury that removed the deposits, 
whom Clay had denounced in the Senate as one of 
the great scoundrels of the century. 

The first time I savv Mr. Clay was in the Senate in 
the winter of 1838, when he spoke for a few minutes. 
His manner was easy and graceful, but imperious and 
commanding. The Senate then shone with excep- 
tional lustre. In the front rank towered Clay, Web- 
ster, Calhoun, Benton, Buchanan, and Wright. Next 
to them stood such statesmen and orators as Critten- 
den, Southard, Tallmadge, Rives, Preston, and Clay- 
ton. Even distinguished men like King of Alabama, 



HEXEY CLAY AS AN ORATOR. 153 

Frank Pierce, Grundy, Eobert J. Walker, Allen of 
Ohio, and Hugh L. White felt honored by being as- 
signed to the third class. The conflict between re- 
chartering the United States Bank and establishing 
the Sub-treasury was then at its heiglit, and Clay and 
Webster predicted a revolution if the latter prevailed 
over the former. But they lived years after the mar- 
ble building in Philadelphia, wdiere the bank so long 
kept w^atch and ward, was quietly converted into a 
sub-treasury. If the ghost of Nick Biddle ever re- 
visits the glimpses of the moon, it must be shocked 
as it glides up Chestnut Street, and sees " the base 
uses" to "which the fine old Grecian edifice is 
put. 

In the summer of 1839 I heard Mr. Clay deliver an 
elaborate speech on the Bank and Sub-treasury cpies- 
tion from an open barouche, at the steps of the ~New 
York City Hall. He had been conducted by a long 
cavalcade of horsemen from the banks of the Hudson, 
and he was now surrounded by an immense concourse. 
I stood at the junction of Broadway and Park Pow^ 
His voice rang out so loud and clear that his words 
were distinctlv reverberated from the wall of the 
Astor House. He was then putting in his bid for the 
next Presidential nomination. But, though their great- 
est leader, the Whigs declined to run him in the cam- 
paigns of 1840 and then in 1848, when he could 
certainly have been successful. Soon after the disas- 
trous contest of 1844, in a short, humorous speech 
he accounted for his failure. He said some of his 
opponents were like those of Tom Brown's Doctor 
Fell: 

7* 



151 KANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

" I do not love you, Dr. Fell, 
The reason why I cannot tell ; 
But this alone I know full well — 
I do not love you, Doctor Fell." 

He was looking forward to a nomination in 1848. 
I watched liim with interest as he lingered in the 
Senate Chamber and Supreme Court, surrounded by 
admirers over whom the sway of his personal mag- 
netism was as irresistible as that of Napoleon over 
his Old Guard. 

One summer evening, in 1852, 1 arrived at the Del- 
evan House, in Albany, retired to rest, and was soon 
fast asleep. By and by the strains of martial music 
floating on the midnight air awoke me, and called me 
to the open window. It was a band playing the Dead 
March in Saul at the head of a procession that had 
just taken the remains of the great Kentuckian from 
a steamer on the Hudson, and was escorting them to 
the train that Avas to bear them to their final resting- 
place at the West. 

Kivalries of the type displayed by Clay and Web- 
ster have been common among leaders of parties, and 
have often torn them in pieces, as, for instance, those 
of Jackson and Calhoun ; Van Buren and Cass ; Ben- 
ton and Atchison ; Marcy and Wright ; Buchanan 
and Dickinson ; Ritchie and Blair ; Cass and Doug- 
las : John Van Buren and Sevmour ; Seward and 
Chase ; Weed and Greeley ; Wade and Chase ; Gree- 
ley and Kaymond ; Dix and Tilden ; Conkling and 
Fenton ; Hendricks and McDonald ; Cameron and 
Grow ; Thurman and Payne ; Blaine and Conkling. 

The glass shows many more. Let no one complain 



GEORGE P, BAKKEK. — SANFORD E. CHDECII. 155 

that his name is omitted. If all were included, the 
line would stretch out till the crack of doom. 

This class of politicians are wont to make chasms 
in parties through which they themselves often drop, 
and disappear forever. 

In the fall of 18-il I was in Buffalo at a Democratic 
meeting addressed by George P. Barker, who had won 
a reputation for a style of oratory like that ascrilied 
to John Van Buren. Tall, graceful, with a kindling- 
eye and clarion voice, Barker s speech swept the au- 
dience along like an overflowing river. The annexa- 
tion of Texas v\'as beginning to loom threateningly 
upon the horizon. The Democracy generally were 
favoring the scheme. Barker was suspected of un- 
soundness on this question. A few Whigs had gone 
in with the throng. One of them, in the hope of an- 
noying Barker, who was dashing forward in his usual 
brilliant manner, cried out. " Are you in favor of an- 
nexing Texas to strengthen the slave power of the 
country ?" Turning to his questioner, but not paus- 
ing in his speech. Barker tlirew in the reply, as if it 
were a parenthesis, " All the world for freedom ; Salt 
River for the Whigs." This sally silenced the Whig, 
and drew cheers from the Democrats. 

In the following January I was introduced to San- 
ford E. Church, then the youngest member of the As- 
sembly of 1842, where appeared such leaders as John 
A, Dix, Horatio Seymour, Michael Hoffman, Arphaxad 
Loomis, and Peter B. Porter. I referred to the scene 
at Buffalo, and Church said he was going to make 
Barker attorney-general ; and he did, and the worthy 
predecessor of John Yan Buren he was. 



156 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

Mr. Church was a member of the Buffalo Conven- 
tion of 1848. Dean Richmond, James S. "Wadsworth, 
James W. ISTye, and I were taking a kinch, when 
Church came in, dripping with perspiration, and said 
there was a great clamor in the convention, some 
calling upon Charles Francis Adams for a speech, and 
others shouting for Frederick Douglass. " Nye," said 
Church, '' it is a contest between a Whig and a negro, 
and they have agreed to compromise on you. Will 
you go over?" This tickled ISTye's fancy, and he 
went to the tent under which the convention sat and 
made one of his witty speeches, that restored the 
sweltering assembly to good-humor. Mr. Church rose 
steadily in favor when twice lieutenant-governor and 
as comptroller and chief judge of the Court of Ap- 
peals. He was not a genius, knew little of general 
literature, but brimmed all over with sagacity and 
common-sense. 



CHAPTER XYHI. 

Democratic National Convention of 1844. — Van Buren, Polk, and 
Cass. — Poll? Nominated for President. — Wright Nominated for 
Vice-President. — He Declines.— First Use of tlie Morse Tele- 
grapli. — Polli's Duplicity in Forming bis Cabinet. — Marcy, Sec- 
retary of War. — The Barnburners Angry. — Death of John Quin- 
cy Adams. — The Barnburner Revolt of 1847-48. — "The Assas- 
sins of Silas Wright." — List of Barnburners and Hunkers. — 
Utica Convention of 1848. — Young, Cambreling, and Tilden Pres- 
ent. — Cass and Taylor Rival Candidates for President. — Con- 
vention at Buffalo in 1848.— B. F. Butler's Speech,— "D—n his 
Turnips!" — Van Buren Nominated for President, and Charles 
Francis Adams for Vice-President. — The Barnburner Revolt 
Defeats Cass and Elects Taylor. — Reunion of the New York 
Democracy in 1849. — The Election and its Results. 

Mk. Yan Buren having been beaten in 1840 on the 
sub-treasniy and cognate issues, the great body of the 
Democrats believed that he ought to be renominated 
in 1844, He Iiad a majority of the delegates in the 
National Convention of the latter vear: but an in- 
trigue, in which General Cass was the central figure, 
sprung on him the two-thirds rule, and defeated his 
nomination. To prevent Cass or any of the other in- 
triguers from getting it, the friends of Yan Buren 
(Avho had previously conferred with James K. Polk 
about putting him on the ticket for Yice-President) 
now changed front in the convention, and nominated 
Polli for President, It is interesting to remember 
that Silas AYrioht was nominated for Yice-President, 



153 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

but instantly declined, and that the messages which 
passed between the convention, at .Baltimore and 
Wright at Washington on this subject were the first 
ever sent over the Morse telegraph. Polk owed his 
candidacy to the Barnburners, and expressed grati- 
tude to them for it. To enable him to carry New 
York at tiie election, Wright, then a leader in the 
Senate, consented to run for governor. The prize 
having been won, and Henry Clay beaten by the loss 
of New York, Polk now turned traitor to the men 
who had made him President. Wright having been 
chosen Governor, was out of the question for a seat in 
the Cabinet, but Polk hypocritically offered him the 
Treasury. Wright declined it, and, with the concur- 
rence of Mr. Van Buren and all the leading Barnburn- 
ers, proposed that the representative of J^ew York in 
the Cabinet be either Benjamin F. Butler for the State 
Department or Azariah C. Flagg for the Treasury. 
Polk whiffled, equivocated, fell into the hands of the 
Hunkers, and spurned the recommendation of those 
who had lifted him from obscurity into the Presi- 
dency. The Barnburners '• nursed tlieir wrath to keep 
it warm," and in 1848 emptied the vials on the head 
of General Cass, the Hunker candidate for President, 
and opened the breach in the party that was never 
closed till slavery was overtlirown. 

In the chilly morning of February 21, 1848, I met 
Mr. John Quincy Adams by the fireplace in the rear 
of the Speaker's chair in the House of Pepresenta- 
fives. He had waU^ed, as was his wont, to the Capi- 
tol. As he shook my hand, he trembled with cold. 
He took his usual seat. Some fulsome resolutions 



DEATH OF JOHN QUIXCY ADAJIS. 159 

eulogizing General Taylor, who was looming as a pos- 
sible Presidential candidate, were the first business. 
They created an ujDroar. Forty members were shout- 
ing to the Speaker, Mr. Speaker K. C. Winthrop 
was vigorously plying his gavel. My eye fell upon 
Mr. Adams. His hand was nervously creeping up his 
desk as if he were trying to rise. I thought he was 
about to take part in the din that filled the hall. But 
instantly I saw the pallor of death on his cheek. JTis 
hand dropped by his side, and he slowly inclined over 
the arm of his chair. I spoke to Washington Hunt, 
a member, and subsequentl}^ Governor of New York : 
" Look to Mr. Adams, he is falling in his chair." He 
rushed towards him. A call for help arrested the at- 
tention of the House. It became silent as the grave. 
The aged patriot was borne to the Speaker's room, 
never to leave it alive. Sage of Quincy ! He had 
fought a good fight for the liberty of the Press, Free- 
dom of Speech, and the Eight of Petition. He fell 
in the plenitude of his fame, on the theatre of his 
grandest achievements, with the roar of battle sound- 
ing in his valiant ear. 

In the fall of IS-fT I was a spectator at the Demo- 
cratic State Convention of that year, held in Syracuse. 
The convention tore itself asunder in a desperate 
struggle over the renomination of Azariah C. Flagg 
as comptroller, the defeat of Martin Van Buren at 
the Baltimore Convention of 18-14, the pohtical assas- 
sination of Silas Wright when running for governor 
the second time in 1846, and the attempt to incor- 
porate the Wilmot Proviso into the platform of the 
party. The great chiefs of both factions v.xre on the 



160 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

ground, and never was there a more fierce, bitter, and 
relentless conflict "between the Xarrasransetts and the 
Pequods than this memorable contest between the 
Barnburners and the Hunkers. Mr. Wrig-ht was the 
idol of the Barnburners. lie had died that summer. 
James S. AVadsworth voiced the sentiments of his fol- 
lowers. In the convention some one spoke of doing 
justice to Silas Wright. A Hunker sneeringly re- 
sponded, "It is too late; he is dead." Springing 
upon a table, Wadswortli made the hall ring as he 
uttered the defiant reply : " Though it may be too 
late to do justice to Silas Wright, it is not too late to 
do justice to his assassins." The Hunkers laid the 
Wilmot Proviso on the table, but the Barnburners 
punished them at the election. 

The Barnburners were the Girondists of the De- 
mocracy. Listen to a sample of names : Martin Yan 
Buren, Silas Wright, B. F. Butler, Churchill C. Cam- 
breling, Michael Hoffman, Dean Richmond, John 
Van Buren, Samuel J. Tilden, David Dudley Field, 
Addison Gardiner, A. C. Flagg, Samuel Young, G. 
P. Barker, Nicholas Hill, Sanford E. Church, John 
A. Dix, William Cullen Bryant, Preston King, James 
S. Wadsworth, Arphaxad Loomis, J. W. ISTye, AVill- 
iam Cassidy, Andrew H. Green, Abijah Mann, John 
Bigelow, Thomas B. Carroll, Peuben E. Fenton, and 
Charles J. Folger. A slight acquaintance with the 
politics of ISTew York suffices to show that these vrere 
men of mark. 

In the stormy epoch of 1847-48 the Hunkers were 
ably led by William L. Marcy, Daniel S. Dickinson, 
Edwin Croswell, Horatio Seymour, Charles CConor, 



THE WILMOT PEOVISO. 101 

Eeiiben 11. Walworth, Samuel Beardsley, and AVill- 
iam C. Bouck. 

The Syracuse Convention of 1847 had divided the 
ISTew York Democrats into two bitter factions. The 
convention for nominating the national ticket was to 
meet at Baltimore in May, 1848. Each faction ap- 
pointed full delegations, each claiming to be regular. 
In 1848 the Democratic legislative caucus, at Albany, 
issued an address to the country, defending the regu- 
larity of the Barnburner delegates, and presenting 
with consummate ability the Free-soil side of the 
slavery controversy. It is now known that this ad- 
dress was the joint production of Martin Van Buren, 
Samuel J. Tilden, and John Van Buren. After an 
acrimonious contest at Baltimore the convention re- 
fused to admit the Barnburners as the sole delegates, 
but would allow half of them and an equal number of 
Hunkers to represent the state ; or, as I happened to 
put it in a speech at a meeting soon afterwards in 
Albany, which tickled ISTicholas Hill, the chairman, 
"The regular delegates might occupy half a seat 
apiece, provided each of them would let a Hunker 
sit on his lap." The Barnburners declined to enter 
on these conditions. General Cass was then nomi- 
nated for President,, and the Free-soil Democracy re- 
solved to defeat him. 

The proceedings at Baltimore set the Free-soil ball 
a-roUing, and enthusiastic meetings were held all over 
New York. A tumultuous assemblage in the City 
Hall Park was addressed by John Van Buren and 
Churchill C. Cambreling, the latter declaring, in sono- 
rous tones, that "slavery had received its death sen- 



162 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

tence." A Democratic state convention met at Utica in 
June. A large representation of the most distinguished 
Democrats of 'New York was present, and the veteran 
Samuel Young took the chair. He delivered a vehe- 
ment speech, in which he said, " A clap of political 
thunder will be heard in this country next November 
that will make the propagandists of slavery shake 
like Belshazzar." Utterances like these from Demo- 
crats of such eminence as Cambreling and Young re- 
verberated all over the Union, giving slavery a blow 
from which it never recovered. Mr. Tilden made an 
able report respecting the proceedings at Baltimore, 
and Martin Van Buren addressed a noble letter to the 
convention, vindicating the constitutionality and wis- 
dom of the Wilmot Proviso. The convention nom- 
inated him for President. The Free-soil stream soon 
broke over the Barnburner dykes, and the result was 
the famous gathering in August at the Queen City of 
the Lakes. 

The nomination of General Cass for the Presidency 
by the Democrats and General Taylor by the Whigs 
led to the Buffalo Convention of 1848. The Barn- 
burners had opposed Cass in vain at the Baltimore 
Convention. They had made the Monumental City 
lurid with their wrath, frightening the delegates from 
the back states almost out of their wits. At Buffalo 
I was one of the committee that drafted its Free-soil 
platform. It was a motley assembly. Pro-slavery 
Democrats were there to avenge the wrongs of Mar- 
tin Yan Buren. Free-soil Democrats were there to 
punish the assassins of Silas Wright. Pro-slavery 
Whiffs were there to strike down General Tavlor be- 



THE BUFFALO CONVENTION, 163 

cause lie had dethroned their idol, Henry Clay, in the 
Philadelphia Convention. Anti-slavery Whigs were 
there, breathing the spirit of the departed John Quin- 
cy Adams. Abolitionists of all shades of opinion 
Avere present, from the darkest type to those of a 
milder hue, who shared the views of Salmon P. Chase. 
An immense tent was raised on the court-house square 
for the accommodation of the convention, where the 
crowds were regaled with speeches and music. Its 
real business was conducted bv delegates locked in a 
Baptist church close at hand. There was a rooted 
prejudice against Mr. Van Buren among the Whigs 
and Abolitionists. But the adroit eloquence of his 
former law ]\artner, Benjamin F. Butler, of Albany, 
and an admirable Free-soil letter from the Sage of 
Lindenwald himself, carried him through, and be was 
nominated for President, with Charles Francis Ad- 
ams for Vice-President. 

A rather amusing illustration of this prejudice oc- 
curred while Mr. Butler was speaking. It will be re- 
membered that, in his inaugural address as President, 
Mr. Van Buren pledged himself to veto an}' bill passed 
by Congress for the abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia unless the measure was sanctioned 
by the states of Virginia and Maryland. This pledge 
gave great umbrage to Anti-slavery men of all types, 
and, though eleven eventful years had since elapsed 
when the Buffalo Convention was held, the hostility 
to Van Buren on account of this old pledge remained 
unshaken in many minds. In his speech Butler was 
getting around thorny points in Van Buren's career 
very skilfully. While graphically descriljing a recent 



164 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

visit to the ex-President's Kinclerhook farm, and tell- 
ing how he was now absorbed in bucolic pursuits, like 
Cincinnatus, the model yeoman of his epoch, Butler 
spoke of the agilit}^ with which Van Buren leaped a 
fence to show his visitor a field of sprouting turnips. 
A Whig in the convention, who remembered the veto 
pledge, and was utterly opposed to nominating its 
author, broke in upon Butler with the startling ex- 
clamation, " D — n his turnips ! What are his o])in- 
ions about the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia?" "I was just coming to that subject," 
responded the oily Barnburner, with a suave bow 
towards the ruffled Whig. " Well, you can't be a 
moment too quick in coming to it," replied the cap- 
tious interlocutor. But, as I have already stated, the 
frank letter of Mr. Van Buren carried him triumph- 
antly over the breakers. 

The revolt of the IS'ew York Barnburners gave the 
thirty-six electoral votes of the state to General Tay- 
lor, Avhich was his precise majority in the Union. 

Some Barnburners have said that tiie Democratic 
revolt of 18-1:7-48 was the beginning of the Free- 
soil movement. This is an error. It is mistaking 
the rocky cataracts over which the stream fell for the 
remote fountains whence it rose. The revolt gave a 
mighty im]>ulse to the current, but did not originate 
it. Ev^en long before Garrison appeared it had 
broken forth in the Missouri controversy of 1819-20. 
Whoever reads the speeches of James Tallmadge, 
John W. Taylor, and Ilufus King in Congress in that 
troubled period will lind that they were as sound in 
doctrine, as strong in argument, as splendid in diction. 



BAENEURNERS AND HUNKERS. — JOHN VAN BUREN. 165 

as any of the utterances of the folio^Ying forty-five 
years, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Con- 
stitution closed the controversy for all time. 

In 1849 the Barnburners and Hunkers held sepa- 
rate state conventions at Rome to try to reunite the 
party. The leaders of each faction were present, and 
committees of conference exchanged o])inions. A res- 
olution offered by me to adhere to the Wilmot Pro- 
viso was adopted. "VVe split on that rock, and the 
conventions adjourned. A pressure from the rank 
and file brouo^ht them too-ether ao^ain, when a frail 
coalition was effected. John Yan Buren described it, 
in his graphic style: "We are asked to compromise 
our principles," said he. " The day of compromise is 
past ; but, in regard to candidates for state offices, 
we are still a commercial people. We will unite with 
our late antagonists," he added. Then, paraphrasing 
the Declaration of Independence, he said : " And wo 
will hold them as we hold the rest of mankind — ene- 
mies in war, in peace friends." This effort to com- 
bine incongruous elements failed. A mixed ticket for 
the five state candidates was nominated. With one 
exception they were all defeated at the ballot-boxes. 
This device, so frequently employed by leaders of par- 
ties for closino' chasms in their ranks when fundamen- 
tal principles are involved, is rarely successful. The 
history of political coalitions proves this. 



CHAPTER XTX. 

The Author Elected to the New York Senate in 1849.— The Canal 
Bill. — Twelve Senators Resign to Defeat it. — Re-elected in 1851. 
— The Bill Passes. — The Court of Appeals Pronounce it Uncon- 
stitutional. — The Author's Seat Contested. — Dinner at the Astor 
House. — Speech of Seward and another. — Thurlow Weed. — 
The Midnight Call.— The Contest Squelched. — Weed's Hand in 
it. — Members and Measures in the Senate. — Hamilton Fish 
Elected United States Senator. — James W. Beekman Bolts Fish. 
—Notices of Hoffman, Loomis, Seymour, Dix, Van Buren, 
Marcy, and Dickinson. — John Van Buren and the Apple-woman; 
his Ill-health; the Water-cure Establishment; his Death at Sea. 

I WAS elected to the State Senate in 1849, and took 
my seat in IS 50, I was there during the agitation 
over tlie compromise measures growing out of the 
Mexican war. A great variety of resolutions were 
introduced in the legislature on those questions. 
"While this subject was before the Senate I drew a 
very radical resolution, by way of amendment to a 
series then pending. It elicited warm debate, and 
was put to test on a call of the yeas and nays. It 
was adopted. Every Whig and every Democrat who 
voted for this amendment subsequently became a 
member of the Republican party. 

I will here insert two of the resolutions which I 
assisted to frame, and supported in speeches by my 
votes. One declared that "the Federal government 
ought to relieve itself from all resj^onsibility for the 
existence or continuance of slavery or the slave-trade, 



\ 



BLAVERY AND CANAL LEGISLATION. 107 

wherever it has the constitutional power ov^er these 
subjects/' Another said that " we feel bound to op- 
pose, by all constitutional means, and our Senators in 
Congress are hereby instructed, and our Representa- 
tives requested, to use their best efforts to prevent, hy 
2?ositwe enactment^ whenever necessar}'', the extension 
of slavery over any part of our territory, however 
small, and by whatever pretence of compromise. 
These sentiments seem commonplace to-da}^, but it 
cost a liigh price to utter them in a legislative body 
in January, 1850, and to stand uj) to them before the 
people. All the Barnburners in the Senate voted for 
these resolutions, while seven of the seventeen Whigs 
recorded their names against them. 

The Whigs in the legislature, at the session of 1851, 
introduced an unprecedented bill, which appropriated 
many millions of money for the purpose of enlarging 
the canals. The Barnburners deemed it unconstitu- 
tional, as did Democrats generally. The bill had 
passed the Assembly, where the Whigs had a large 
majority. To prevent the presence of the three-fifths 
quorum necessary to carry it in the Senate, it was 
thought best that twelve senators should resort to tlie 
desperate expedient of resigning their olhces. The 
consequence was that the bill fell in the Senate. 

Elections were ordered on short notice to fill the 
twelve vacancies, and an extra session of the legisla- 
ture was called for June. The tide ran against the 
resigning senators, all of whom stood for re-election. 
Six, whose districts were far away from the canals, 
were successful. The other six, who lived in ca- 
nal districts, were overwlielmed, witli one exception. 



168 KANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

There were three canals, stretching fortj^-two miles, 
in the three counties of my district. There were 
twelve stump-speakers in the field against me, mar- 
shalled by Gerrit Smith. At the close of the savage 
fight I w^as re-elected by five majority. The bill w^as 
passed at the extra session. I opposed it step by step. 
The judiciary soon afterwards vindicated the sound- 
ness of the doctrines of the resigning senators. The 
Court of Appeals adjudged the law to be unconstitu- 
tional, null, and void. In this contest I was the spe- 
cial target of the " Canal Ring." On both occasions 
when I ran for the Senate, my district, on a fair test 
of the strength of parties, was politically opposed to 
me. I was at each election carried through by a 
large number of votes from the opposite party in my 
own town and several adjoining towns, and particu- 
larly from the poorer citizens in these towns. To be 
thus sustained at home in these sharp struggles, and 
when I had to bear up against great moneyed inter- 
ests and profligate legislation, I regarded as a higher 
compliment than to have received the degree of LL.D. 
from the proudest university in the country. 

My opponent in the second election was Hon. Josiah 
B. Williams, a rich, popular, and highly respectable 
Whig, of Ithaca. He prepared himself with a pile of 
petitions and affidavits, for the purpose of contesting 
my seat before a body wherein his political party had 
a great majority. I had not armed myself with a 
single petition or affidavit. The following facts illus- 
trate the tact of one or two Whig leaders who flour- 
ished in that era. In the winter previous to the re- 
signation of the twelve senators a public dinner was 



THE ERIE CANAL. 1G9 

given ill New York city to the legislature. Mr. Sew- 
ard, then in the Senate at AYashington, was confront- 
ing, almost single-handed, the assaults of the slave 
power, in a crisis that v/as extremely perilous. lie 
attended the dinner. I was required to make a speech. 
I complimented Mr. Seward for his fidelity to the 
Free-soil cause in the Senate, and at the close gave a 
toast like this : " William II. Seward, our eminent 
Senator in Congress, may prosperity ever attend him." 
All the Wliigs cheered because it was Seward, and all 
the Barnburners because I said it. In the dead vast 
and middle of the night, vrhile asleep at the Astor, 
Thurlow Weed came to my room, awoke me, and said 
that the manuscript in his hand was an imperfect re- 
port of my speech. He wislied me to correct it for 
the newspapers, and be sure and suppl}^ some of the 
eulogies on Seward, which the reporter had omitted. 
I arose and spent a half hour in revising the speech, 
and thought no more of the small matter. 

In the following June, on the first day when the 
new Senate assembled, Mr. Weed met me in the lobby 
before I entered the chamber, and, laying his hand on 
my shoulder, said, in substance: "Mr. Williams has 
collected a pile of affidavits, and will contest your seat 
furiously. You recollect you made a speecli in favor 
of Mr. Seward, at the Astor dinner last winter, and 
got out of bed at my request and revised it. Tlie 
Whigs, at this session of the Senate, Avill change the 
committee on ' Privileges and Elections,' and (giving 
my shoulder a squeeze that made me wince), ^ I think 
you loill like the change P'''' The committee was 
changed. The new member, whereon everything 
S 



170 KANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

hinged, had served with me in the previous Senate. 
He was a leading Whig, of the Weed-Seward scliool. 
My contestant hied his huge heap of petitions and 
affidavits. Tlie committee met. I presented two 
legal points, on a piece of paper about as large as 
my hand. The new member gave a side glance at 
them, craved time to examine them, and moved that 
the committee adjourn one week. Williams flour- 
ished his ])ile of documents, and protested. The mo- 
tion to adjourn was carried by one majority. The 
week came around, and the committee again met. 
The new member assured them that he had been so 
busy in the Senate that he had not found leisure to 
look at the papers in my case, and therefore moved 
an adjournment for two weeks, so that he could ex- 
amine my two points. Mr. Williams had employed 
counsel, and there was a tussle over the question of 
adjournment. The new member again carried his 
motion. Meanwhile I opposed the canal bill as vig- 
orously as in the session previous to the resignation. 
AVhen the two weeks came along there was no quo- 
rum of the committee present, nor was there at a 
subsequent meeting, and that was the last I heard of 
the attempt to unseat me. 

It is proper to add that I had not a doubt of the 
legality of my election, and that I never said a word 
on the subject to any member of the committee nor 
to Mr. Weed. But I presume there was not a fool 
in the legislature so big as to believe that Thurlow 
Weed's hand was not in tlie matter. 

I was not a candidate for another nomination to 
the Senate. I could not afford to be a member, and I 



THE STATE SENATE IN 1849. 171 

had no desire to support myself on " the drippings 
of unclean legislation." 

During my membership the presidents of the Sen- 
ate were Lieutenant-governors Patterson and Church. 
In the front rank of my colleagues stood Edwin D. 
Morgan, afterwards Governor and United States Sen- 
ator ; James M. Cook, subsequently Comptroller and 
Bank Superintendent ; Thomas B. Carroll, who be- 
came a Canal Appraiser, and Mayor of Troy ; George 
Geddes, the accomplished civil-engineer ; William A. 
Dart, United States District-attorney and Consul-gen- 
eral to Canada ; George E. Babcock, Charles A. Mann, 
Clarkson Crolius, James AY. Beekman, and Dr. Bran- 
dreth, of medical fame. We were the second senate 
chosen under the Constitution of 1846. It devolved 
on us to pass several general statutes for giving effect 
to provisions of that radical instrument, especially in 
regard to corporations. Among an unusual number 
of important measures adopted were the general man- 
ufacturing law, the general railroad law, the general 
school law, and a complete revision of the then very 
defective code of procedure. I was on the committee 
that performed this last-mentioned weary task, where- 
in we were guided by David Dudley Field, Arphaxad 
Loomis, John C. Spencer, and Nicholas Hill. 

I have taken part in the election of five senators in 
Congress. One of the stormiest conflicts we had in 
the legislature of 1851 was over the choice of a Sena- 
tor to succeed Daniel S. Dickinson. The "Whigs held 
the State Senate by a majority of two. In the As- 
sembly they had a good working majority. Their 
caucus nominated Hamilton Fish for Senator. James 



172 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

W. Beekman, a Whig Senator, of Kew York city, 
thi'ew out the hint that he would not support Fish, 
because he had fallen too much under the control of 
Thurlow "Weed. The day for electing the Senator 
arrived. Sixteen Whigs voted for Hamilton Fish, the 
fifteen Democrats voted for as many different candi- 
dates, so that the Fish Whigs could not double over 
upon them. Beekman voted for Francis Granger. 
There being no choice, another ballot Avas taken, with 
the same result. Thereupon I moved that the Sen- 
ate adjourn. The roll was called. The sixteen Fish 
Whigs voted nay, and the fifteen Democrats and 
Beekman voted yea — a tie. The movement was such 
a surprise to Lieutenant-governor Church that he for- 
got to give the casting vote. He was hurrying down 
the steps, with the gavel in his hand, Avhen somebody 
pushed him back to the chair, and he announced his 
vote in the affirmative, and declared the Senate ad- 
journed, amid great excitement. All this while the 
Assembly was slowly going through the roll, and it 
was nearly an hour after we had adjourned before 
they had nominated Governor Fish. 

However, our AVhig friends lay in wait, and stole 
a march upon us a few weeks later. One morning, 
when two Democratic senators w^ere in JSTew York 
city, they sprung a resolution upon us, to go into the 
election of a Senator in Congress. After an unbroken 
struggle of fourteen hours Mr. Fish was elected, the 
exultant cannon of the victors startling the city from 
its slumbers, and convincing the Silver Grays that 
the Woolly Heads still held the capitol. 

The Democratic policy in respect to the canals was 



HOFFMAN AND LOOMIS. 173 

mainly due to Michael Hoffman and Arpbaxad Loomis, 
of Herkimer, who represented that county in the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1846, and often appeared as 
colleagues in the Assembly. In 1843 I spent a week 
or two in Albany, and frequently dropped into the 
Assembly, where a bill in regard to the enlargement 
of the canals was pending. For four days the debate 
shed darkness rather than light over the subject, and 
the chamber grew murky. One morning a tallish 
man, past middle age, with iron-gray locks drooping 
on liis shoulders, and wearing a mixed suit of plain 
clothes, took the floor on the canal bill. I noticed 
that pens, newspapers, and all else were laid down, 
and every eye fixed on the speaker. I supposed he 
w^as some quaint old joker from the backwoods, wdio 
was going to afford the House a little fun. The first 
sentences arrested my attention. A beam of light 
shot through the darkness, and I began to get glimpses 
of the question at issue. Soon a broad belt of sun- 
shine spread over the chamber. I asked a member, 
" Who is that ?" " Michael Hoffman," was the reply. 
He spoke for an hour, and though his manner was 
quiet and his diction simple, he was so methodical 
and lucid in his argument that, where all had ap- 
peared confused before, everything now^ seemed clear. 
Mr. Hoffman was at home on this subject, and his 
speech foreshadowed the articles in the Constitution 
of 184G on the canals and the finances. 

Judge Loomis was a leader in the Convention of 
1846, on the questions pertaining to the judiciary and 
the legislature. The articles on these subjects were 
moulded by him. He subsequently bore a conspicu- 



174 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

ous part in defeating the New York Code of Proced- 
ure, whose chief elements were adopted in several 
other states. The canal law of 1851 having been ad- 
judged unconstitutional, it devolved upon him in the 
legislature of 1853 to frame and carry through the 
new constitutional amendment by which the state 
tided over the difficulty. He and Mr. Hoffman ap- 
proved the course of the senators who resigned to 
defeat the measure of 1851. 

It has been a disputed point which contained the 
most men of mark, the AVhig Assembly of 1838, 
chosen in the fall that uatnessed the prostration of 
Yan Buren's administration on the Sub-treasury ques- 
tion, or the Democratic Assembly of 1842, elected in 
the autumn that saw the overthrow of Tyler's admin- 
istration on the Bank question. In the two there were 
fifty members that subsequently became distinguished 
in state and national politics. Horatio Seymour was 
in the Assembly of 1812. He and Sanford E. Church 
were the youngest members. Conspicuous among 
their seniors stood Michael Hoffman and John A. 
Dix. AVith a fine address and excellent debating 
powers, Seymour soon became a leader of one wing of 
the Democracy. He was in the legislatures of 1844 
and 1845, which were agitated by the state issue of 
the enlargement of the canals and the national issue 
of the annexation of Texas. Tliese rent the Demo- 
crats in New York asunder, the two factions being 
then generally called Eadicals and Conservatives, and 
not Barnburners and Hunkers, as at a little later date. 
Seymour was already a chieftain in the ranks of the 
Conservatives. He measured weapons often with op- 



HOKATIO SEYMOUE. JOHN VAN BUEEN. 175 

ponents in the legislature like Hoffman, Dix, and 
Loomis, and attained the high position in the Demo- 
cratic, party as an orator and a manager which he 
held through his long public career. He was courte- 
ous towards opponents in the Assembly, and he grace- 
fully recognized their exhibition of the like treatment 
of himself. He went into a glow of enthusiasm many 
years subsequent to the occurrence, as he told me of 
grim Michael Hoffman's generous course after he had 
slmrply arraigned the veteran Barnburner, during a 
bitter debate about the canals, and Silas Wright, and 
kindred themes, which had lasted several days. One 
morning Hoffman rose to reply to Seymour, but on 
learnino; that he was ill he refused to dehver his 
speech for two or three days, till Seymour was able 
to be in his seat. 

I shall not try to paint a portrait of John Yan Bu- 
ren, the brilliant Barnburner. There could hardly be 
a wider contrast between two men than the space that 
divided the Sage of Lindenwald from Prince John. 
In one particular, however, they were alike. Each 
had that personal magnetism that binds followers to 
leaders with hooks of steel. The father was grave, 
urbane, wary, a safe counsellor, and accustomed to 
an argumentative and deliberate method of address 
that befitted the bar and the Senate. Few knew how 
able a lawyer the elder Yan Buren was. The son was 
enthusiastic, frank, bold, and given to wit, repartee, 
and a style of oratory admirably adapted to swaying 
popular assemblies. The younger Yan Buren, too, 
was a sound lawyer. Some of his admirers were wont 
to tell him that he made a mistake in not aiding to 



176 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

lay the foundations of the Eepublican party ; " for," 
said they in 1856, " if you had, 3^ou would now have 
been where Fremont is." " Wait and let us see," was 
the sarcastic response, " how Fremont turns out." 

I heard John Yan Buren relate this little anecdote 
with characteristic humor : "When he Avas Attorney- 
general he had obtained for an elderly female the 
valuable monopoly of the right to sell a])ples, cakes, 
and candy in the rotunda of the State Capitol. She 
was an ardent admirer of Prince John, and a vocife- 
rous Barnburner. It was admitted that in the cam- 
paign of 1848 he had led in the Democratic revolt 
that gave the thirty-six electoral votes of New York 
to General Taylor, whicli defeated General Cass. 
When the AVhigs came into power they threatened 
to turn the Barnburner vroman out of the Capitol. 
With ruin staring her in the face she repaired to her 
patron, and begged him to save her. lie went to 
Thurlow AYeed, who was supposed to own the Whig 
})arty, explained the case, pleaded his services in the 
Presidential campaign, and said lie asked only the 
single favor of the salvation of the apple-stand. Mr. 
Weed squeezed the hand of the Prince, shed a sym- 
pathizing tear, and hoped he might be able to pull 
the old woman through. But when the tide of ad- 
ministration reform reached Albany she was swept 
out of the Capitol, and tlie apple-stand was bestowed 
on a female of the Whig persuasion. 

The last time I saw John Yan Buren was before he 
left for Europe, to make a final effort to regain his 
health. I was on the Hudson Eiver Eailroad. The 
conductor said a gentleman in a seat farther forward 



DEATH OF JOHN VAN BUEEN. 177 

(pointing to it) wished to see me. As I took the 
proffered place by his side, and gave him a puzzled 
look, he said, "You don't knoAv me!" The tones of 
his voice instantly told me that it was John Yan 
Bm^en. Though faded, wan, and feeble, the wit re- 
mained. He had been at a water-cure establishment. 
" Think of trying to bring me up by cold water," re- 
marked the Prince, with a quiet smile. " "Why," he 
added, " as they put me in a pack the other night, 
and stowed me away in an ujiper loft, where the 
moonbeams came trickling down upon me through 
the skylight, I felt as if 1 were dead and laid out." 

When, afterwards, I heard of the sad death of my 
friend in mid-ocean, I recalled the lines of Scott : 

" Fleet foot on the corrie, 
Sage counsel in cumber, 
Red baud in tbe foraj^ 

How sound is tby slumber!" 

Mr. Seymour resisted the Barnburner revolt of 

1847, and supported General Cass for President in 

1848. But he warmly espoused the movement to re- 
unite the party the next year, lie was in advance of 
Governor Marcy in that direction. Seymour pushed 
forward, while Marcy hung back. Seymour rather 
liked the Barnburners, except John Yan Buren, of 
whom he was quite jealous and somewhat afraid. 
But Marcy, after the experiences of 1844 and 1848, 
denounced them in hard terms, until Seymour's plas- 
tic hand kneaded him into a Soft, and the Free-soil 
Democrats began to talk of him for President in 1852, 
when the wily old Eegency tactician mellowed tow- 
ards them. Nothing was wanted to carry Marcy clear 



178 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

over except the hostility of Daniel S. Dickinson, who 
stood in his way to the White House. This he soon 
encountered, and this reconciled him to the Barnburn- 
ers. Some of them, however, still distrusted him. 

The resignation of senators to defeat the canal bill 
led to a great meeting in the Capitol grounds at Al- 
bany, where Horatio Sej^iiour, who had been beaten 
for governor the previous fall, made a bold speech in 
their defence. Mr. Seymour was then among the 
most effective and eloquent platform orators in New 
York. Less electrical than John Yan Buren, he was 
more persuasive ; less witty, he was more logical ; 
less sarcastic, he was more candid ; less denunciatory 
of antagonists, he was more convincing to opponents. 
They were rivals — one carrying the standard of the 
Barnburners, the other bearing the banner of the 
Hunkers. But on the canal issue they were in accord, 
each denouncing the unconstitutional measure, and 
apj^lauding the retiring senators. Both naturally 
took to statesmanship of a high order. 

I frequently spoke on the same ])latform with Sey- 
mour and Yan Buren, and attended state and na- 
tional conventions with each of them. But I never 
met both of them at the same time on the same plat- 
form, nor in the same convention. These two re- 
markable men had little in common except lofty am- 
bition and rare mental and social gifts. Their salient 
characteristics were widely dissimilar. Seymour was 
conciliatory, and cultivated peace. Yan Buren was 
aggressive, and coveted war. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Whig National Convention of 1852. — Webster's Sad Appearance. 
— General Scott Nominated for President. — Democratic National 
Convention of 1852. — Cass, Buchanan, Marcy, Douglas, and 
Dickinson Aspirants. — An Unexpected Interview by the Vir- 
ginians. — New York Delegation in Private Conference. — Threats 
to Throw Seymour out of the W^indow. — Marcy and Dickinson 
Slaughter eacli other. — Pierce Nominated. — Dean Eichmond's 
" Finality."— Pierce's Cabinet.— Dix Cheated, and Marcy Called. 
—Pierce Approves the Missouri Compromise Repeal. — Rends 
tlie Democratic Party Asunder.— Republican Party Formed in 
1855-56.— Fremont Nominated for President. — James G. Blaine. 
— Notices of Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, John Jacob Astor, 
John Brown, and Martin Van Buren. — Brown Handles a Rifle, 
and Hits tlie Bull's-eye. — Van Buren Predicts the Overthrow of 
Slavery amid Convulsions. 

The Whig l^Tational Convention met at Baltimore 
in May, 1852. I was on the train for Washinofton. 
At that day we had to cross the mouth of the Sus- 
quehanna at Havre de Grace by ferryboat. As the 
passengers were descending the long, steep stairs into 
the gorge I saw Mr. AYebster, leaning heavily on the 
arms of two gentlemen, and surrounded by a caval- 
cade of friends. He was a candidate for the Presi- 
dency, in the convention then about to assemble. It 
was a sad spectacle. The great statesman was then 
so shattered in healtli that four months afterwards 
he sank into his tomb. But though a wreck, he bore 
up sturdily while clutching at the glittering prize 
he had so long pursued. He received a mortifyingly 



180 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

small vote in the convention. General Scott carried 
off the nomination. " Oh, Charles," exclaimed Web- 
ster to Mr. Stetson, of the Astor House, a few days 
afterwards, "-what pains me is that the South, for 
which I had done and sacrificed so much, did not give 
me a single vote !" 

General Scott made a tour of the country, exhibit- 
ing his stalwart figure, and discoursing of " the rich 
Irish brogue and the sweet German accent." He 
carried only the four states of Massachusetts, Yer- 
mont, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It was the end of 
the Whig party. The slavery controversy destro3'ed 
AVebster in the convention, Scott at the polls, and 
precipitated that grand old organization into a fath- 
omless pit. Close behind stood the Democrats, giv- 
ing three cheers for their victory, on the crumbling 
edge of the chasm that had engulfed the Whigs. " It 
is an irrepressible conflict," said Mr. Seward. 

The Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, 
in 1852, was a struggle for the nomination to the 
Presidency between Cass, Buchanan, Marcy, and 
Douglas. The I^ew York delegation was divided, in 
the proportion of twenty-three for Marcy, whose 
leader was Horatio Seymour, and thirteen for Cass, 
whose leader was Daniel S. Dickinson. It soon be- 
came apparent that Mr. Dickinson himself was a can- 
didate, and was looking for success to a combination 
between a large share of the supporters of Cass and 
a smaller contingent of the friends of Buchanan. In- 
deed, Mr. Dickinson told me so. The ballotings were 
many and wearisome, each of the aspirants doing his 
best to pull down his rivals. 



DEMOCKATIC CONVENTION OF 1853. ISl 

At the close of the first or second day I was pass- 
ing through the hall of Barniim's Hotel, when, to my 
surprise, I was invited by Dickinson to enter a room 
where the Virginia delegation (which thus far had 
voted for Buchanan) was in consultation. After an 
introduction, and a statement that I was a Barn- 
burner, the chairman asked me whether, if Mr. Dick- 
inson were to receive the nomination, he could carry 
'New York ? Never can I forget the anxious look of 
Dickinson as they waited for the answer. I promptly 
replied that Mr. Dickinson, and Governor Marcy, and 
Mr. Doufflas, and anv other man whom the conven- 
tion nominated, would receive the electoral vote of 
New York. I then retired from this very unexpected 
interview. Dickinson followed me, thanked me, but 
regretted that I had mentioned anv other name than 
his. 

The next morning Virginia voted for Dickinson. 
I then saw what the interview of the previous day 
meant. Dickinson rose, made a short speech, thanked 
Virginia, and begged its delegation to support Gen- 
eral Cass. This was the keynote for the combination 
on Dickinson. He asked me if I thought Virginia 
would adhere to him, and I frankly told him " I^o," 
for I had reasons for regarding its vote merely as a 
compliment. Mr. Dickinson's friends used to assert 
that he threw away the Presidency on this occasion. 
I happened to know better. He never stood for a 
moment where he could control the Virginia vote — 
the hinge whereon all ^vas to turn. The convention 
generally believed that the result in November would 
depend on New York, and it was ready to accept any 



182 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

candidate upon whom the delegates from that state 
would unite. In the protracted and weary ballotings 
Marcy rose steadily, till his vote reached ninety-eight. 
The New York delegation then retired for consulta- 
tion. The convention hall and its adjoining rooms 
were over a market, which was besieged by noisy 
carts and trucks. One of the rules of the convention 
authorized the delegates of any state to cast its vote 
for such candidates as the majority of its delegates 
might direct. In the retiring-room Seymour moved 
a resolution that on the next ballot the vote of New 
York be cast solidly for William L. Marcy. If a 
bomb had exploded among them it could hardly have 
caused more excitement. Oliver Cliarlick, a super- 
heated Hunker from Long Island, threatened to 
throw Seymour out of the window unless he with- 
drew the resolution. Seymour saw that it would be 
unwise to force a united vote for Marcy in the face 
of so much hostility, and he finally recalled the reso- 
lution. Perhaps, too, he did not relish the idea of 
being thrown into the street among the struggling 
carts and trucks. Thus ended the chances of Marcy. 
In this style it was that Dickinson and Marc}^, the 
envenomed rival sachems, scalped each other in the 
great wigwam at Baltimore. 

On the next ballot (I think it was the next) Vir- 
ginia voted for Franklin Pierce. The convention was 
weary, and soon the stampede came, and the New 
Hampshire brigadier was nominated. 

The Barnburners did not weep over the defeat of 
Marcy, rejoiced at the discomfiture of Cass, and were 
in doubt about Pierce. The convention had adopt- 



PIEKCE FOR PRESIDENT. 183 

ed resolutions declaring the Pro-slavery Compromise 
Acts of 1850 a "finality" on that subject. On the 
way home from Baltimore a Hunker was teasing 
Dean Eichmond, of Buffalo, by telling him that the 
proceedings were a finality on the Wilmot Proviso. 
'• A finality on Cass," was the swift response of the 
bluff Dean. Though so destitute of all literary fur- 
nishraent as to be scarcely able to write grammati- 
cilly, Mr. Richmond carried on his broad shoulders 
one of the clearest heads in the ranks of the Barn- 
burners. 

Pierce was elected by a majority so large that it 
turned his weak head. He was a calamity to the 
Democracy and the nation. He yielded to unwise 
counsellors, and favored the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise, which rent the party asunder during his 
official term, and arrayed against him a large body of 
Jacksonian Democrats of the type of Thomas 11. Ben- 
ton, Sam Houston, and Francis P. Blair, senior. This 
insane measure bore bitter fruits in the perturbed ad- 
juinistration of Buchanan, and ultimately plunged the 
country into one of the most portentous and bloody 
civil wars in all history. In the construction of his 
cabinet Pierce was a dissembler. Daniel S. Dickin- 
son was urged upon him for a place by an enthusi- 
astic following, but he spurned the distinguished ex- 
Senator, and drove iiim into the ranks of the enemies 
that prevented his renomination and expelled him 
from power. Pierce first promised the JN'ew York 
seat in his Cabinet to General Dix. He afterwards 
gave it to Governor Marcy. Dix was consoled with 
the pledge that he should soon be sent as Minister to 



184 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

Paris, but was meanwhile set to watching the vaults 
of the New York sub-treasury. He sat there wearily 
through the spring, summer, and fall, waiting for the 
French mission to turn up. I accidentally met him 
on Broadway on the morning when Pierce's first an- 
nual message appeared, and asked him how he liked 
it. '' It is a good message," said he. lie then added, 
with a spice of bitterness in his tone, " If I can say 
this I think anybody can afford to." If General Dix 
had not believed that the holding of some office was 
essential to his existence he would have thrown his 
sub-treasury commission in the face of the President 
wdio had deceived him. It would be difficult to name 
any other man in this country who filled so many 
important offices, and so acceptably, as John A. I)ix. 
The precise date of the organization of the Repub- 
lican party in the nation is in dispute. In New York 
it was reduced to form, at Syracuse, in the fall of 1855. 
Its component elements Avere Anti- slavery Whigs, 
Barnburner Democrats, Abolitionists proper, and Free- 
soil Know-Nothings. Committees of conference, in 
which Thurlow Weed and Preston King were promi- 
nent figures, settled the preliminaries, and the new par- 
ty assembled in Weiting Hall, with Reuben E. Fenton, 
of the Barnburner wing, filling the chair. I helped 
to launch the new party, and then, on the afternoon 
train of that day, by request of Henry C. Martindale, 
Avho was subsequently Attorney-General of the state 
and Major-General in the army, I went to Rochester 
and delivered a Republican speech. Of course, I was 
quite at home on the slavery topic. My address was 
reported, and generally copied in New York. I sub- 



fke:.iont beats seward. 1S5 

sequently spoke in Buffalo with Governor Seward, 
and addressed other large meetings in that campaign. 
Our first venture on this stormy sea was not success- 
fid. Our state ticket was submerged in the Know- 
Nothing breakers. 

The Pierce administration repealed the Missouri 
Compromise. This precipitated the doom of slavery. 
The Republican party was the legitimate outcome. 
I helped to organize it in the state of Kew^ York, and 
was a member of the National Convention at Phila- 
delphia, in 1856, which nominated Fremont and Day- 
ton. I delivered numerous addresses in their support 
from Maine to Ohio. The Philadelphia Convention 
Avas opened wdth prayer by Rev. Albert Barnes. Colo- 
nel Harvey S. Lane, of Indiana, presided, and occa- 
sionally rapped on the table with his boot-heels to 
preserve order. James G. Blaine was one of the sec- 
retaries. Lane, afterwards senator in Congress, was 
nearly as tall as Mr. Lincoln. He led the cheers 
for Lincoln at Chicago in 1S60. "When that fel- 
low Lane," exclaimed a disgusted Seward delegate, 
"jumped on the table with his hat on his uplifted 
cane and screamed for Lincoln he looked as if he were 
thirty feet high." 

The feeble cause I had espoused at Cincinnati in 
1832 rested, in 1850, on the broad shoulders of a strong 
party which was marching on to victory. 

Whenever I think of Horace Greeley the scene rises 
before me of a flaxen-haired boy in a log-cabin in a 
cleft of the Green Mountains, lying on the hearth, 
after a hard day's work in a scrubby field, reading a 
book by the blaze of pine-knots. But these pine- 



186 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

knots lighted the barefooted youth to the path that 
led to great achievements and enduring fame. 

I first met Greeley on the front stairs of a Graham 
boarding-house in New York city, where he was liv- 
ing on bran-bread and cold water. He was then ed- 
itor of the New - Yorker, a journal of which he was 
justly proud. The encounter on the stairway was ac- 
cidental. His wife, fresh from North Carolina, had 
sunk down at that rather inconvenient spot in a sort 
of hysterical swoon, and seemed so reluctant to yield 
her vantage-ground that ingress and egress by the 
boarders were only possible l^y carefully stepping over 
her. Mr. Greeley, with a deprecatory air, was bend- 
ing down, and in soothing tones was trying to per- 
suade her to seek a more comfortable resting-place. 
Early friends of the wedded pair will recall the fact 
that they became acquainted at this William Street 
hostelry, and that their espousals were chronicled in 
some pleasant verses that bore the refrain, " Maid of 
the Graham-house, sunny and sweet !" 

As an illustration of the vicissitudes of journalism, 
while at the same time pointing to a great political 
error, I will relate the following anecdote : The first 
report that came from the Liberal National Conven- 
tion of 1872 stated that Charles Francis Adams was 
nominated for President. Happening to be in the 
Sun office, Mr. Dana asked me to write an article on 
the subject. I went to my la'w-office, and spent three 
hours in preparing three columns of what I thought 
was excellent matter, including a rather imposing 
sketch of the Adams famil}', from the first John 
down to the alleged Liberal nominee. On returning 



HORACE GKEELEY. 187 

to the Stui rooms with my editorial, imagine my sur- 
prise to learn that Horace Greeley, and not an Ad- 
ams of any sort, was the candidate. I cast my labored 
production into the waste-basket, and went home. 

The campaign of 1ST2 was a blunder on the part of 
those who opposed the re-election of Grant. If the 
bolting Republicans had nominated Greeley, and the 
regular Democrats had presented a candidate like 
Horatio Se3miour, for instance. General Grant would 
liave been defeated. But it proved to be impossible 
to persuade a large class of Democrats to vote for 
''the founder of the JVew Yorh Tribune.''^ 

My last glimpse of Horace Greeley was soon after 
the election of 1872. He darted out of the Tribune 
office, ran against me, and started down Park Row at 
a rapid pace. I contrived, to keep up with him, and 
followed him into a street-car at the Astor House. 
On accosting him he gave me a wild stare that alarmed 
me. I inquired after his health, and he replied, "I 
have ruined all my friends in the election, and now 
they are destroying me." A few more words satisfied 
me that his mind was clouded. How sad was his end ! 

Gerrit Smith helped to quarry the corner-stone of 
the Republican party. He was the very friend of the 
slave. His purse was always open for the promotion 
of their cause. When I was a secretary of the Amer- 
ican Anti-slavery Society he placed in my hands at 
one time his check for $10,000 for its treasur}^ — a sum 
equal to $25,000 now. He Avas the protector and. 
patron of runaway negroes who followed the fort- 
unes of the North Star. Forty years ago, at his pa- 
latial mansion in Peterboro', and which looked like 



188 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

the country-seat of an English nobleman, it would be 
singular if you did not find among the fashionable 
guests from New York, Albany, and Philadelphia 
surrounding his hospitable board at least one or two 
fugitive slaves. Indeed — and especially in the sum- 
mer season — his visitors were of the most miscellane- 
ous and amusing description. There you might meet 
a dozen wealthy and refined visitors from the metro- 
politan cities ; a sprinkling of negroes from the sunny 
South on their way to Canada; a crazy Milleritc or 
two, who, disgusted with the world, thought it des- 
tined to ho burned up at an early day ; an adventurer 
who wanted IMr. Smith to invest largely in some ut- 
terl}^ impracticable patent right, while the throng 
would be checkered with three or four Indians of the 
neighborhood, the remnants of the once powerful 
Oneidas, who remembered the father, and felt pretty 
sure that they could get something out of his munifi- 
cent son. The high-born guests had come to enjoy 
themselves during the summer solstice at this fine 
rural retreat, and they always had a good time. As 
to the rest, they were never sent empty away, espe- 
cially the negroes and the Indians, the former accept- 
ing cash in hand and good advice aljout the best route 
to Canada, while the latter departed in good time 
with shoulders stooping under burdens of flour, beef, 
and other edibles. But Mr. Smith never was known 
to invest in any of the patent rights, and he took not 
a single share of stock in the scheme for burning wp 
the world. 

I was, many years ago, riding with Gerrit Smith in 
one of the counties of northern New York. I:e sud- 



SMITU AXD ASTOR. 180 

clenly stopped the carriage, and, looldng around for a 
few minutes, said, " We are now on some of my poor 
land, familiarly known as the John Brown tract ;" 
and he then added, " I own eight liundred thousand 
acres, of wliich this is a part, and all in one piece." 
Everybody knows that Judge Peter Smith, his father, 
purchased the most of this land at sales by the comp- 
troller of the state for unpaid taxes, and left it by will 
to his son Gerrit. He said that he owned land in fifty- 
six of the sixty counties in ]S"ew York. Some of 
this brought him a handsome income, though he gave 
a good deal ol it away years before he died. lie was 
also a landholder in other states of the Union. 

Early in 1S37 Mr. Smith's father died, leaving a 
large estate to Gerrit, charged with heavy legacies 
and debts. Two or three months after the decease 
of his father the -well-remembered panic of 1837 oc- 
curred. The banks had suspended specie payments, 
and could afford Mr. Smith no loans to m^et pressing 
obligations. So embarrassed was he that his counsel 
advised him to make an assignment of his property 
for the benefit of liis creditore. Mr. Smith declined 
to make the assignment until he had first conferred 
with the elder John Jacob Astor, the old friend of his 
father. Smith wrote to Astor, and informed him of 
his situation, and said that, if possible, he would be 
glad if he could make him a loan, and take such secu- 
rity therefor as he had to offer. Mr. Astor invited 
him to come to ISTew York and talk the matter over. 
He came, and dined with the great millionaire. As- 
tor, of course, knew his errand, but, during the pro- 
tracted dinner, seemed more inclined to tell anecdotes 



100 KANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

about his excursions thirty and forty vears before 
with Peter Smith up the valley of the Mohawk than 
to listen to details about Gerrit Smith's present obli- 
gations and the value of the property which he could 
put under mortgage. As they sat at the hospitable 
board Mr. Astor would frequently break in with the 
enthusiastic exclamation, " Why, Gerrit, how much 
you do look as your father used to when he and I 
went up the Mohawk among the Indians after furs !" 
At length they came down to business, and Mr. Astor 
asked Smith how much of a loan he wanted. He 
told him P250,000. '' Do you want it immediately, 
and all at once V said Astor. " I do," said Gerrit. 
'• Then vou shall have it." It was arrane-ed that 
Smith should give Astor a mortgage on his Oswego 
water-power, for whicli Smith had paid $14,000 about 
fifteen years before, for this loan of $250,000. Mr. 
Smith returned to Peterboro', and in three or four 
days received Mr. Astor's check by mail for $250,000. 
He made out the mortgage and sent it to Oswego to 
be recorded, with directions to mail it to Mr. Astor 
as soon as it was inscribed on the records. Smith 
went on using the money, and supposed that all had 
gone right about the forwarding of the mortgage. 
After a delay of several weeks, judge of his surprise 
at receiving a letter from Mr. Astor, saying that he 
Avas afraid that his friend Smith had forgotten to 
make out that mortgage which they talked about 
when he was last in the city. Smith hastened to Os- 
wego, and found that, through some stupidit3^ the 
county clerk had forgotten to mail the mortgage to 
Astor, although it had been duly and seasonably re- 



JOHN BKOWN. 191 

corded. Of course it was now sent forward, accom- 
paniea Dy an. appropriate explanation. Thus, for sev- 
eral weeks, John Jacob Astor had nothing but Gerrit 
Smith's word for a loan of $250,000. This incident 
lets in a flood of light upon the characters of these 
two remarkable men. 

I have not space to give even a list of the martyrs 
who endured pains and penalties unto death in the 
Anti-slavery cause. The tears of an enfrancliised 
race will bedew their graves, and an appreciative 
posterity Avill erect monuments to their memory. 
One well - remembered figure looms on my vision 
from his lonely resting-place in the Adirondacks. I 
met John Brown but once, and then unexpectedly, at 
Gerrit Smith's. Mr. Smith's son, Green, was a sports- 
uian. He had an assortment of rifles, and was a fair 
shot. After dinner Green went out with a couple of 
companions to fire at a target. I was looking on 
when Captain Brown appeared on the scene. The 
firing was rather wild. Brown watched awhile, and 
then closely examined the rifles, selected one, loaded 
it, and faced the target. He pointed tlie weapon at 
the ground, with his eye on the barrel, raised it rap- 
idly, and the instant it came to a level he fired, and 
lilt the bull's eye right in the centre. Handing the 
rifle to Green Smith, he said, with a grim smile, 
"Boys, that is the way to shoot," and slowly re- 
turned to the house. Soon after Brown's execution 
an editorial from my ]3en appeared in the 'New York 
Tribune, which I am willing should stand as my opin- 
ion of his character and deeds. He will fill a unique 
niche in American history. The echo of his fame will 



192 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

reverberate along the colonnades of tlie centuries, and 
preserve from oblivion the names of those who ])nt 
him to death. 

In 1858 I had the pleasure of spending a da}" at 
the hospitable mansion of ex-President Yan Buren, 
near Kinderhook. The Sage of Lindenwald was in- 
structive and entertaining. The most interesting por- 
tion of his conversation related to slavery. Refer- 
ring to the campaign of 1848, he said that his utter- 
ances on that great evil were his matured convictions. 
" I have nothing to modify or change," he remarked, 
With serious earnestness he added, " The end of sla- 
verj" will come — amid terrible convulsions, I fear, but 
it will come." A word about Mr. Van Buren's per- 
sonal following. Has it ever been equalled by any 
other 'New York statesman ? In the contest of IS-IS 
he carried over, on a bolt from the regular Presiden- 
tial nominee, more than half the Democratic voters 
in the state. How few Governor Seward was able 
to lead over to Andrew Johnson's " pohcy " in the 
election of 1866! I feel constrained to pay peculiar 
honors to Mr. Yan Buren for the course he and his 
followers pursued in 1847-48 in regard to the ex- 
tension of slavery. Their protest at the ballot-boxes 
in that crucial emergency was the turning-point in 
the great controversy that ultimated, fifteen years 
later, in the overthrow of the "institution" and the 
preservation of the Union. But for the aid of Dem- 
ocrats Avho had been trained in the school of Martin 
Yan Buren, Silas Wright, and Samuel J. Tilden, tlic 
Union and the Constitution might perhaps have gone 
to pieces in the terrible epoch of 1861-65. 



CHAPTER XXL 

William H. Seward as Senator. — Seward on Weed. — Seward Un- 
bending. — Seward and Judge Sackett. — Weed the "State 
Fifer." — Seward and Conkling.— Coukling Elected to Congress 
ill 1858. — Seward on Greeley. — John Sherman, Candidate for 
Speaker. — Tom Corwin as an Orator. — The Jewish Rabbi Prays. 
—Henry Winter Davis. — Pennington Chosen Speaker. — Slidell's 
Bill to Purchase Cuba. — Wade and Toombs in Close Contact. — 
"Land for the Landless Tcrsits Niggers for the Niggerless." — 
Scene in the Senate in 1859 between Benjamin and Seward. — 
Seward Smokes Benjamin's Cigar. — Scene in the Senate in 1834 
between Clay and Van Burcn. — Van Burcn Takes a Pinch of 
Clay's Snuff. 

Me. Sewaed represented ISTew York in the Senate 
in a grand and memorable era. He rose to the level 
of his responsibilities, and was courageous, sagacious, 
sincere, and earnest. He led a forlorn hope against 
formidable foes, over which the cause he championed 
finally triumphed. He was grave in argument and 
dignified in demeanor, and, though rhetorical and 
even ornate in style, he never indulged in those flashy 
Hippances that sometimes succeed in palming them- 
selves off as wit, but which legitimate wit repudiates 
as a bastard progeny. 

Since Mr. Dickinson and General Dix left the Sen- 
ate, ISlew York has sent several respectable members 
to that body, but no really able men, when measured 
by a lofty standard, except Mr. Seward and Mr. Conk- 
ling. IMr. Evarts is yet to be thoroughly tried on 
9 



194 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

this new field. He doubtless remembers that Erskine, 
one of the greatest advocates that ever addressed an 
English jmy, and Jeffrey, who shone so brilliantly in 
the Scotch courts, failed in Parliament. The many- 
sided men like Brougha]n and Webster are few in 
number. 

Nobody knew better than Mr. Seward that, if he 
had been the candidate for the Presidency in 1S5G, ho 
would have received the same vote that Fremont did, 
and that his nomination in 1860 would have inevita- 
bly followed, and he would have entered the White 
House instead of Lincoln. Mr. Seward more than 
hinted to confidential friends that Mr. Weed betrayed 
him for Fremont. 

Mr. Weed himself told the following story : He and 
Mr. Seward were riding up Piroadway, and when pass- 
ing the bronze statue of Lincoln, in Union Square, 
Seward said : " AVeed, if you had been faithful to me, 
I should have been there instead of Lincoln." " Sew- 
ard," replied Weed, " is it not better to be alive in a 
carriage with mo than to be dead and set up in 
bronze V 

At the close of the Fremont campaign some mon- 
ey remained in the treasury of the National Commit- 
tee. William M. Chace, of Providence, the secretary, 
favored its expenditure on the famous " Helper Book." 
Edwin D. Morgan, the chairman, would consent to 
this, if Mr. Weed advised it. Being at Washington 
in the winter of 1857-58, I met Mr. Chace, who had 
come there for the rather queer purpose of requesting 
Mr. Seward to request Mr. AVeed to request Mr. Mor- 
gan to adopt Chace's plan for tlie disposal of this 



SEWARD ON WEED. 195 

money. Chace not knowing Mr. Seward jiersonally, 
I went one evening to his house to introduce him. 
The Senator w-as alone with his after-dinner cigar. 
Chace explained his case to his attentive listener, I 
sitting near, reading a newspaper. The Senator puffed 
out a cloud of smoke and began to talk in that delib- 
erate style so familiar to his friends. " Mr. Chace, I 
understand you want me to speak to Mr. Weed, and 
request him to advise Mr. Morgan to make a certain 
disposition of the funds in question V Mr. Chace 
bowed. " Mr. Chace," resumed the Senator, " Mr. 
Weed is a very peculiar man. He is a very secretive 
man. He is an unfathomable man. He thinks I am 
always driving everything to the devil. But through- 
out my public life he has told me to do this or that 
particular thing, and I have done it. He has told me 
not to do this or that, and I have refrained from do- 
ing it. Whether in all this he was cheating me or 
cheating somebody else (for I take it for granted ho 
is always cheating somebody), I don't know." He 
then suggested to Mr. Chace to go to Senator Simon 
Cameron, and tell him he had sent him, and take his 
advice in the matter of the funds. Some congress- 
men dropped in, and Chace and I left. AVe did not 
s})eak for a block or two. My Rhode Island coadju- 
tor then jerked my arm, burst into a laugh, and said, 
" Did you ever hear anything equal to that V 

We never know a public man till we see him in un- 
dress. Webster in a boat at Marshfield, Avith a fish- 
ing-rod in his hand, was a different person from Web- 
ster in the Senate holding spellbound the elite of the 
nation. Mr. Seward was an intense toiler in the thorny 



VJC> RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

field of politics. He delighted to throw off his bur- 
den, and unbend in a small circle of friends. At Sen- 
eca Falls there resided Garry V. Sackett, v/hom Sew- 
ard, when Governor, had appointed a judge of the 
Common Pleas. He was a gentleman farmer, large 
and stately in person, and dressed in the style of 
Webster. He was on familiar terms with Seward, 
took great liberties with him, and the Senator often 
came to Seneca, and had a free-and-easy round of 
fun. Sackett did not know as much as he thought 
he did, and Seward sometimes made a butt of him 
and roared with laughter, though the Judge would 
occasionally make reprisals on the spot. When the 
Senator visited the Judge, I was generally called in, 
and sometimes the young people of the village were 
invited for the evening. The latter looked with awe 
upon the distinguished statesman from Auburn. 

During one afternoon, Seward had been firing his 
teasing arrows at Sackett. In the evening, the Judge, 
arrayed in full AVebsterian costume, posed before a 
houseful of young people, and went for the Senator. 
He brought out and pinned on the wall the famous 
caricature in which, wdien Seward was Governor, 
Thurlow Weed is depicted as the state fifer, with the 
principal state oificers marching in Indian file behind 
him, and straining themselves to the utmost to keep 
up with the musician, who is blowing at the top of his 
bent. Indeed, the little Governor, in trying to tread 
in the tracks of the tall fifer, had torn his trousers at 
rather a delicate spot. The likenesses were perfect. 
The picture was widely circulated, and it so closely 
accorded with the jeers in the Democratic newspapers 



SEWARD OS SACKETT. 19 



T 



that it was very annoying to Mr. Seward even after 
he became Senator, for Mr, Weed, in popular estima- 
tion, was still " The Dictator," 

On the occasion referred to, Sackett elaborately 
explained the picture to the youngsters in the pres- 
ence of Seward, telling what a great leader Weed 
was, how obediently the Governor followed him, how 
closely even to that day he kept step wath him (at 
this point seemingly trjang to conceal the rent hi his 
trousers), assuring the deeply interested listeners that 
Seward owed his success in politics wholly to Weed ; 
and then, looking over his shoulder to where Seward 
sat smoking, exclaimed, "Is not that so, Governor?" 
The response came back, " Sackett, you are a fool. 
Go and get me another cigar." 

At another time, before Mr. Seward and a like au- 
dience, and to " get even " with the teasing Senator, 
the Judge told the story of his visit to the Anti-rent- 
ers, in the Helderberg, in company with Seward, soon 
after he was chosen Governor. The Anti-renters were 
making an uproar. The legislature had authorized a 
commission to consider their grievances, and Mr, Sew- 
ard had appointed Sackett one of the commissioners. 
The latter proposed that they visit the troubled dis- 
trict, the young Governor assented, notice was sent out 
three or four days ahead, and they rode to the Hel- 
derberg in a stately barouche drawn by four horses. 
Long afterwards, on due provocation, at Seneca Falls, 
Sackett took reprisals of the bantering Senator after 
dinner, by describing the scene at Helderberg. He 
said that when the barouche arrived, several hundred 
Anti-renters w^ere on the ground. Sackett, standing 



198 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

six feet two inches liigli, and dressed in imposing cos- 
tlirae, got out first. Tlie crowd rushed upon him, sa- 
luted him as Governor, and gave three cheers. The 
commissioner lifted his gold-headed cane high in air, 
and exclaimed, " Stop, gentlemen ! You have made 
the same mistake that the people of New York made 
last fall. They doubtless ought to have chosen me 
Governor, but, instead, they elected this man, w^hom 
I present to you as "William IT. Seward." Sackett, 
then addressing the dinner-part}^, w^ould add, with 
great relish, " You ought to have seen how the crowd 
fell back wdien I introduced Seward as the Governor. 
He was clambering out of the carriage while they 
were giving me the three cheers, and many of them 
said they didn't believe that little man was the Gov- 
ernor." Then turning to the Senator, he said, " Wasn't 
it a funny scene, Seward !" The Senator replied that 
when the commissioners went into tlie Helderbarg to 
take testimony, Sackett wasted all their time in tell- 
ing preposterous stories that nobody believed. 

In 1858 Roscoe Conkling was the Republican can- 
didate for Congress in Oneida. Mr. O. B. Matteson, 
who had previously represented this district, was 
zealously opposing him. Matteson had long been a 
personal friend of Mr. Sew^ard. Hard pressed, Mr. 
Conkling sent for Mr. Seward and myself to address 
a county meeting at Rome. I was- called to keep the 
Republican Barnburners in line for Conkling. Mr. 
Seward was summoned to counteract the effect of 
Matteson's hostility. Wrapped in a blue broadcloth 
cloak, with elegant trimmings, Conkling surveyed the 
large audience with anxious eye. I spoke first, eulo- 



SEWAED ON CONKLING. 199 

gizing Seward and Conkling. Tlie Senator commenced 
his address with a hearty encomium upon Matteson, 
by way of preface to the matter in hand. lie then 
spoke generally in support of the Repubhcan cause, 
and eloquently commended his young friend Conk- 
ling to the voters of Oneida. I have been told that 
this eulogium of Mr. Matteson was retained in the 
published report of Mr. Seward's speech under the 
special direction of Mr. Seward, and against the ear- 
nest protest of Mr. Conkling's friends. The next morn- 
ing I went to Utica, and was amused to see that near- 
ly the only notice taken of the Eome meeting, by the 
general press, was a full report of Mr. Seward's eulo- 
gium on Mr. Matteson. This, of course, would go the 
grand rounds of the newspapers in the state. I met 
Mr. Conkling. My acquaintance with the English 
language is not sufficiently intimate to enable me to 
describe how angry he was. Mr. Conkling was elect- 
ed. Then commenced those twenty years of service, 
in the House and Senate, which have left their lus- 
trous mark on the records of Congress. 

I was at Mr. Seward's, in Auburn. The conversa- 
tion ran on public affairs and public men. He re- 
marked that it Avas a long time before he fathomed 
one prominent character in ]S^ew York. This was 
Horace Greeley. He said he had supposed Greeley 
was doing his work from philanthropic motives, and 
had no desire for office ; but subsequently he found 
he was mistaken, and that he was very eager to hold 
office. I replied, in rather a careless tone, " Senatoi*, 
do you not think it would have been better for you 
if vou had let him have office V Mr. Seward looked 



200 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

at me intently, rolled out a cloud of tobacco smoke, 
and then slowly responded, " I don't know but it 
would." I was not aware how point-blank a shot I 
had fired, for I did not then know of the existence of 
the letter of November 11, 1854, addressed by Greeley 
to Seward, dissolving the old political firm of " Sew- 
ard, Weed, and Greeley," by the withdrawal of the 
junior partner, Greeley's opposition to Seward's 
nomination to the Presidency, in 18G0, brought this 
unique epistle out of the secret archives of Mr. Sew- 
ard. It is printed in Greeley's " Kecollections of a 
Busy Life," and will repay perusal by students of 
fallen human nature. 

Thomas Corwin w^as the prince of orators. He was 
elected to Congress in 1858. He had long before w^on 
fame throughout the Union. ISTo party had an abso- 
lute majority in the House that witnessed the terri- 
ble era that ushered in the rebellion. The balance of 
power between the Republicans and Democrats, in 
the House, was held by a small body of JSTorthern 
Know-Nothings, Southern Know-lS'othings, and Old- 
line Whigs. John Sherman, on the nomination of 
Corwin, became the Republican candidate for Speak- 
er. The contest, commencing in December, 1859, con- 
tinued for eight Aveeks. TJie ballotings were inter- 
spersed Avith a variety of speeches. One morning 
Corwin arose. The House and galleries overflowed 
with spectators. His address lasted three days. His 
aim was to prove tliat in their efforts to prohibit by 
law the extension of slavery the Republicans were a 
constitutional party. It was one of the most wonder- 
ful speeches I ever heard. All that had gone before 



TOM CORWIN AS AN OKATOE. 2'"'1 

it, and all that came after it, in this weary contest of 
two months, seemed mere chattering in comparison 
with an effort that was replete with logic, wit, humor, 
repartee, sarcasm, and pertinent references to history, 
and sketches of statesmen in early days who held the 
doctrines of the Wilmot Proviso ; and all the while, 
amid the glitter of the lighter and gayer passages of 
the speech, the orator was canying forward the heavy 
chain of ratiocination. 

One day there was an unnsnal commotion on the 
floor. The pages were running to and fro, and a hun- 
dred quivering pencils were keeping tally to the call 
of the clerk. It was seen that all the Democrats, and 
a dangerously large share of the Know-!N"othings and 
Old-line Whigs, were voting for Mr. Smith, of North 
Carolina, a new candidate. Ere the result was an- 
nounced, John Sherman rose. " Mr. Clerk, please call 
my name. " John Sherman," said the clerk. " Thom- 
as Corwin," responded Sherman. On counting the 
tally Ust, it w^as found that the votes cast for Sher- 
man and the one vote for Corwin were precisely 
equal to the total votes given for Smith. A narrow 
escape. 

That evening Sherman withdrew, and ex-Governor 
William Pennington, of New Jersey, was named as 
the Republican candidate. There being no regular 
chaplain, it had been the custom to invite the Wash- 
ington clergy in turn to officiate in that capacity. 
The next morning the Jewish rabbi appeared for the 
first time. Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he lifted 
his open eyes to the ceiling and prayed that the God 
of Aloraham, Isaac, and Jacob vrould break the dead- 
9- 



202 RANDOM KECOLLECTIOXS. 

lock in the House, and set the wheels of Congress 
in motion. Winter Davis, who had steadily voted 
against Sherman, was pacing the hall in the rear of 
the seats. When the clerk called his name, he an- 
swered, in a tone that thrilled the crowd, " Penning- 
ton !" The elegant member from Baltimore had a 
following. After one or two ballots Pennington was 
chosen, and the Republicans had a speaker. The 
House took a long breath, and determined to have 
some sport. A motion to adjourn was voted down, 
and so was another and another. The new speaker 
gave the floor to everybody that asked for it, till a 
dozen members were talking at once, amid screams of 
laughter. Mr. John Cochrane, a Democrat, crept up 
the marble steps, and told Mr. Pennington that if he 
would recognize him he w'ould move an adjournment, 
and he believed enough Democrats would vote with 
him to carry the motion. " Oh, no, Mr. Cochrane," 
said the speaker ; let her run." After it had had fun 
enough the House adjourned, with the clumsiest pre- 
siding officer that ever filled the chair. 

John Slidell introduced into the Senate a bill to ap- 
propriate twenty or thirty millions of dollars (I for- 
get which) for the purchase of Cuba. Of course, the 
object was to strengthen the slave powder. When he 
moved to take up the bill, it was antagonized by a 
motion to take up the bill for granting public lands 
free of cost to settlers, known as tlie Homestead bill. 
A debate immediately arose on the merits of the two 
measures, which ran into the night, and became in- 
tensely bitter towards the close. Robert Toombs, 
of Georgia, whose seat was right beside Benjamin F. 



WADE AND TOOMBS, 203 

Wade's, was eloquently abusive. He shook his fist at 
Seward, who at that moment was standing in tlie door 
of a cloak-room calmly puffing a cigar, and called him 
a little demagogue. He accused the Republicans of 
being afraid of the " lacklanders " (as he styled those 
who might wish to accept the privileges of the home- 
stead policy), frequently thumping his desk by way 
of emphasis, and occasionally striking a blow on 
Wade's. As he took his seat, half a dozen senators 
sprang to their feet. Yice - President Breckinridge 
could not but give the floor to Wade, for he leaped 
clear from the carpet. Turning short on Toombs, he 
exclaimed, " Afraid, are we ? Afraid, are we ? I nev- 
er saw anything or any man under God's heavens 
that I was afraid of," at the same time smiting 
Toombs's desk with his fist, which came inconvenient- 
ly close to the Georgian's nose. Two or three more 
sentences in this vein were hurled at him, accompa- 
nied by heavy thuds on the desk. Toombs rolled back 
his chair, and said, " I except my friend from Ohio 
from my too sweeping remark." " Very well," re- 
sumed Wade, " if you wish to back out, you can go." 
He then briefly dissected Slidell's measure, contrast- 
ing it with the homestead policy, and exclaimed, " We 
accept the issue tendered to us, and will go to the 
people on it, viz., land for the landless versus niggers 
for the niggerless." The excited auditor}^ burst into 
loud applause, which was not easily suppressed. Sli- 
dell's motion was rejected, Mr. Douglas rubbing his 
hands in great glee at the discomfiture of his sly, sour 
enemy. 

It is rare that we meet a character that embodied 



204 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

SO much rough grandeur as Benjamin Franklin "Wade's. 
He did not know what fear was. Toombs was mere- 
ly an eloquent bully. He had little of that courage 
that stands fire. 

During the four turbulent years of Buchanan's ad- 
ministration, Mr. Seward was recognized both bv co- 
adjutors and opponents as the leader of his party in 
the Senate. Though always respectful towards an- 
tagonists, and never for a moment losing his equa- 
nimity in debate, he was so radical in his opinions on 
negro slavery, and so bold in their utterance, that he 
drew upon himself the hostility of the Southern sen- 
ators, and especially such slavery propagandists as 
Toombs, Slidell, Mason, and Benjamin. The latter 
had formerly been a Whig, and his seat was on the 
hereditary Whig side of the chamber, where now sat 
in adjoining chairs four leaders wdio had supported 
General Taylor's administration, namely, Seward and 
Benjamin, Wade and Toombs, the latter then being in 
the House. Among the ready, pungent, and eloquent 
orators in the Senate stood Judah P. Benjamin. One 
day, at the close of a set speech on the Kansas em- 
broglio, he made an impassioned and bitter attack on 
Seward. As Benjamin resumed his seat, Seward rose, 
and, turning to his assailant, said, in a calm and in- 
dijfferent tone, "• Benjamin, give me a cigar, and when 
yoiw speech is printed send me a copy." Seward then 
retired to the cloak-room and smoked Benjamin's 
cigar. 

Though this was done without affectation on the 
part of Seward, it v^as nevertheless a close copy of 
the dramatic scene in the Senate a quarter of a cen- 






CLAY AND VAN BUKEN. 205 

tury before, wherein Clay and Yan Buren were the 
leading actors. It was in the height of the confhct 
over the removal, by order of President Jackson, of 
the Federal funds from the United States Bank and 
its branches, which had set the country all aflame, 
particularly in commercial and financial centres. Mr. 
Van Buren, the Yice-President, was a model of cour- 
tesy as a presiding officer. The Whigs in the Senate, 
led by their great chieftains. Clay and Webster, de- 
manded a return of the moneys to the bank. They 
daily hurled anathemas against Jackson, declaring 
that he was a despot of the deepest dye, and that an 
indignant people would soon rise and hurl him from 
power. They compared him to Nero, Charles I., and 
other tyrants of olden times. One morning Mr. Clay, 
in the course of a vehement harangue, implored the 
Vice-President to instantly leave the Senate chamber 
and repair to the AVhite House, and on his bended 
knees before the despot exert his well-known influ- 
ence over him, and insist upon the restoration of the 
deposits to the bank without an hour's delay, as the 
only means of averting a revolution in the country. 
As Clay closed his eloquent philippic, Van Buren 
called a senator to the chair and went straight across 
the chamber to Clay's seat. The tall Kentuckian rose 
and stared at the little magician, while the perturbed 
spectators awaited the result with undisguised anxie- 
ty. Van Buren bowed gracefully to Clay, and said, 
" Mr. Senator, allow me to be indebted to you for 
another pinch of your aromatic Maccaboy." Clay 
waved his hand towards the gold snuff-box on his 
desk, and took his seat, while Van Buren took a del- 



206 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

icate pinch and leisurely returned to the Vice-Presi- 
dent's chair. 

Perhaps some of those who witnessed the Bank- 
Biddle - Clay - "Webster - Jackson -Yan Buren " revolu- 
tion" of 1832-1836, and lived to see the convulsions 
of 1 861-1 SG5, may be tempted to look back upon the 
financial turmoils of the earlier epoch with feelings 
akin to contemjit. But history would be incomplete 
unless it took note of many little things that derive 
all their importance from the magnitude of the men 
who bore a part in them. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Turbulent Scenes in the House in 1859, 18G0. — Grow Knocks 
Keitt Down. — Crawford Threatens Tliad. Stevens. — Tribute to 
Stevens. — Stephen A. Douglas; his Ke-election to the Senate 
over Abraham Lincoln in 1859. — His Reception in the Senate. — 
Pro-Slavery Democrats Assail him. — Seward Preparing for the 
Chicago Convention of 1860. — Deluded as to his Strength.— The 
Senators Opposed to him. — Corwin and Lincoln Speak in New 
England Early in 1860. — New-Yorkers who Oppose Seward at 
Chicago. — Lincoln Nominated. — Scene at Auburn when the 
News Came. — Seward Embittered. — Crushed Presidential Aspi- 
rations of Seward, Greeley, Clay, and Webster. — Ira Harris 
Chosen Senator in 1861. — Defeat of Greeley and Evarts. — Rufus 
King's Chair in the Senate. — Its Distinguished Occupants. 

During Buchanan's administration scenes often oc- 
curred in the House more dramatic and perilous than 
any in the Senate. I was present when Gahisha A. 
Grow, of Pennsylvania, knocked down Lawrence M. 
Keitt, of South Carolina, under circumstances that 
came near to involving the members, and perhaps the 
galleries, in bloodshed. It was due to the caution 
and firmness of Speaker Orr that the catastrophe was 
averted. At a later day Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, a 
brother of the Alton martyr, while delivering a speech, 
unconsciously advanced step by step across the area 
in front of the clerk's desk. A Southern member laid 
his hand on Lovejoy's shoulder, saying, " Go back to 
your own side." Instantly the area was full of mem- 
bers, the most of whom were armed. The ominous 



208 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

'' click " of weapons was heard. Elihu B. Wasliburne, 
of Illinois, clutched at the supposed hair of "William 
Barksdale, of Mississippi, and pulled off his wig. High 
above the din rose the voice of William Kellogg, of 
Illinois, shouting, "My colleague shall be heard!" 
The crowd swayed to and fro, the mace of the little 
sergeant-at-arms dancing about on the surface till it 
was thrown clear out of the vortex, recallinff the 
scene in Westminster Hall, when Cromwell, who had 
entered to expel the Eump Parliament, Avas confront- 
ed with the mace, and cried, " Take away that bau- 
ble !" The frightened Speaker rapped, rapped, rapped, 
shouted " Order, order, order !" and the storm finally 
subsided. 

Thaddeus Stevens, clearly within parliamentary 
rules, was addressing the House on another occasion 
in his usual pungent style, when Martin J. Crawford, 
of Georgia, followed by a dozen other Secessionists, 
rushed towards him, some of them threatening to as- 
sassinate him on the spot unless he retracted his words. 
The brave old commoner maintained his ground, and 
stood by his words. He was then in his sixty-ninth 
year, and a crip])le. Crawford was forty, and tall, 
wiry, and athletic. The assault plunged the House 
into a vortex of excitement. The deliberation and 
dignity of Stevens cowed Crawford and his caitiffs, 
who, one after another, slunk into their seats, while 
the great debater resumed his speech. The steadiness 
of nerve exhibited by Mr, Stevens probably saved the 
House from a bloody affray. The subsequent career 
of CraAvford illustrates his colossal impudence. Dur- 
ing the civil war he Avas a member of the rebel con- 



TIIADDEUS STEVENS. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 209 

gress, and was sent b}^ that assembly to Washington 
a3 one of a so-called commission or embassy to nego- 
tiate a treaty of peace between the Confederacy and 
the United States, on the basis that the Union was 
already dissolved. Could effrontery further go ! These 
tumults were the skirmishes that preceded Bull Eun, 
Antietam, Gettysburg, and Appomattox Court House. 
Keitt was Idlled in battle in front of Washington, and 
Barksdale fell in the last terrible charge of Lee against 
Cemetery Ridge, at Gettysburg, but Crawford pre- 
ferred to practise law. 

An emancipated race, through the long years to 
come, will cast wreaths on the grave of Thaddeus Ste- 
vens. Born to a low condition, he struggled with adver- 
sity till he reached eminence in law, politics, and states- 
manship. During the administrations of Lincoln and 
Johnson he was the leader of the Republican party 
in the House of Representatives, its most acute and 
fearless debater, occupying extreme radical ground on 
the subjects of the emancipation of the slaves, their 
enlistment in the army in the war period, and their 
admission to the ballot-boxes in the reconstruction 
era ; while on the otlier hand he advocated the politi- 
cal disfranchisement and the confiscation of the prop- 
erty of all those who had actively participated in the 
rebellion. 

Rising from obscurity and poverty, Stephen A. 
Douglas, Avithout adventitious aids, advanced by sheer 
force of will and perseverance to eminent leadership 
in the Democratic party. He had little learning, but 
was endowed with rare oratorical gifts, while his 
buoyant spirits made him popular with the multitude. 



210 EANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

He was a native-born tribune of the people. A little 
story will illustrate his jovial manner. Beverly Tuck- 
er was sitting on his knee, with Douglas's arm around 
him, " Bev.," said he, " when I get to be President 
Avhat shall I do for you ?" " Doug.," replied Tucker, 
" when you get to be President all I shall ask of you 
is to take me on your knee, put your arm around me, 
and call me ' Bev.' " 

In his contest for Senator with Mr. Lincoln, in 1858, 
he was successful, but did not come to AVashington in 
the following winter until after his re-election to the 
Senate by the legislature. In his conflict with the 
" Tall Sucker," of Springfield, the " Little Giant," of 
Chicago, had been driven to the utterance of opinions 
on the Free-soil question which were repugnant to 
the creed of such slavery propagandists in the Senate 
as Davis, Mason, Toombs, and Slidell. His reception 
in the Senate, on his first aj^pearance, was a spectacle 
to be enjoyed. As he entered a select crowd in the 
galleries applauded. Mason, Slidell, and their bitter 
clique scowled and did not recognize him. When a 
distinguished senator approached he rose from his seat 
and received the greeting with marked cordiality. The 
lesser lights were content with a hearty shake of the 
hand, he maintaining a sitting posture. Jefferson Da- 
vis came to his chair. Douglas rose, and they bowed 
and bowed, but seemed to say very little. After some 
of the minor Republicans had paid their respects to the 
lion of the hour, Mr. Seward crossed the aisle ; Doug- 
las rose, they bowed, and he then gave the leader of 
the opposition a seat by his side. Since the last ses- 
sion the Senate had removed into its new chamber, 



SENATOK STUART DEFENDS DOUGLAS. 211 

where Douglas had never sat. Lest he and Seward 
should be suspected of conversing about the Illinois 
contest (which was delicate ground for Mr. Seward 
to tread), the latter, with spectacles in hand and arm 
extended, was pointing out the architectural beauties 
of the new hall, Mr. Douglas following the spectacles 
with his eye, and twisting around in his chair to keep 
pace with their meanderings. 

For many days Douglas was quiet, content with his 
victory at home. The Slavery propagandists deter- 
mined to drive him out of the party. A string of 
resolutions condemnatory of his Illinois opinions was 
introduced into the Senate. The debate lasted far 
into the night. The Republicans generally stood 
aloof. The attacks upon Douglas were rare speci- 
mens of scathing oratory. Mason and Slidell being 
particularly offensive. Douglas and his few Demo- 
cratic coadjutors bore up gallantly against their as- 
sailants. Charles E. Stuart, of Michigan, a Demo- 
cratic Senator, was a strong, rough debater. In the 
evening he converted the Senate Chamber into a 
threshing-Iloor and his tongue into a flail. lie told 
the propagandists that instead of receiving the distin- 
guished Senator from Illinois as a victor, they had 
treated him as if he were a pickpocket. He pointed 
to the many seats, one by one, now occupied by Ee- 
publicans, which he had formerly seen filled by Dem- 
ocrats. " And this," he exclaimed, in stentorian tones, 
and shaidng his fist at the antagonists of Douglas, 
" is due to your detestable doctrines." They quailed 
under the flagellation of Stuart. It gave them a fore- 
taste of the civil war. The success of the North in the 



212 EANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

War of the Eebellion was, strange to say, in part due 
to the author of the bill that repealed the Missouri 
Compromise. I refer to the patriotic letter Douglas 
addressed to his Democratic friends, which was ap- 
pended to Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand 
volunteers, in April, 1861. It produced an impression 
through the country almost as profound as the Presi- 
dent's proclamation. It extinguished the hope of the 
South that they were to receive open aid from the 
Northern Democracy in the attempt to destroy the 
Union. Indeed, the accession to the patriotic side of 
the struggle at a critical juncture of six such distin- 
guished Democrats as General Cass, Mr. Dickinson, 
Eobert J. Walker, Jeremiah Black, General Dix, and 
Mr. Douglas, went far to inspire confidence in the 
ultimate triumph of the constitutional party. 

It so happened that Mr. Douglas and I left Wash- 
ington in the same railway train in the perilous days 
of April, 1801. We occupied adjoining seats till we 
reached the Kelay House, where he turned his face 
towards his Western home. He told me he should 
spend the spring and summer in rallying the people 
of Illinois to the support of Lincoln and the Union, 
Alas ! on the third of the following June his sun set 
to rise no more on earth. 

In ISGO ]\Ii\ Seward made a speech in the Senate 
Avhicli he thought would remove all obstacles to his 
nomination to the Presidency at Chicago. He read 
it to me before it was delivered, and requested me to 
write a description for the New Yorh Tribune of the 
scene in the chamber during the deliver}^, which I 
did. The description was elaborate, the Senator him- 



SEWARD AND CORWIN. -213 

self suggesting some of the nicer touches, and every 
line of it was written and on its way to New York 
before Mr. Seward had uttered a word in the Senate 
Chamber. Soon a large edition of the speech and the 
description came to Washington. As he handed me 
some copies he said, in his liveliest manner, " Here 
we go down to posterity together." He was in buoy- 
ant spirits, seeming not to doubt that his nomination 
was assured. He would have felt otherwise if he 
liad known that at that critical moment scarcely a 
half dozen Eepublican Senators were heartily in favor 
of his candidacy. It is my own personal knowledge 
that enables me to state that Fessenden, Hamlin, 
Hale, Simmons, Foster, Dixon, Cameron, Wade, Trum- 
bull, and Doolittle were among his opponents. 

In the early spring of 1860 state contests ^vere 
pending in Connecticut and Rhode Island whose re- 
sults might exert a wide influence in the next Presi- 
dential campaign. I spoke in Connecticut and seve- 
ral times in Rhode Island. In the latter state a fierce 
struggle was raging for the governorship betv/een two 
rich candidates — William Sprague, Democrat, and 
Seth Paddleford, Republican. Each was flooding that 
little rotten borough Avith money. The Republicans 
urged me to get Mr. Corwin to come from Washington 
and help them. I told them he was poor, and could 
not afford to waste money in stump speaking. I de- 
manded a carte Uanc/ie as to the terms I was to sub- 
mit to the peerless orator. They gave it. I saw him. 
In his half -serious, half-comic style he pronounced me 
a philosopher, and started eastward ; and on his re- 
turn he remarked in the same vein that the Yankees 



214 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

were the most magnificent and munificent people on 
tlie face of the globe. A recital of the details of my 
financial negotiations in behalf of the high contract- 
ing parties might be amusing. 

When in the House of Eepresentatives, in 1848, I 
saw a tall, lank, sallow-hued member bending over 
the chair of another member, scarcely larger than 
one of the pages, whose dried skin looked like j^arch- 
ment. On inquiry I learned that they were Abraham 
Lincoln and Alexander II. Stephens, both "Whigs. 

In the spring of 18G0 Mr. Lincoln came eastward. 
He delivered a Avonderful speech in Cooper Institute, 
and went to Connecticut and Pthode Island, where 
he addressed tumultuous assemblies in the principal 
cities. His debate with Douglas, his speech in New 
York, and his trip to l^ew England, gave him the 
nomination to the Presidency. 

Mr. Seward seemed to bo certain of receiving the 
Presidential nomination at Chicago. He felt that it 
belonged to him. His flatterers had encouraged him 
in the error that he was the sole creator of the Pc- 
publican party, both he and they forgetting that it 
was the grandchild of the Liberty party, which was 
the legitimate offspring of the Missouri controversy. 

At Chicago, Seward encountered the opposition 
from his own state of such powerful leaders as Gree- 
ley, Dudley Field, Bryant, and Wadsworth. The 
first two were on the ground and very busy. The 
two latter sent pungent letters that were circulated 
amoncT the deleorates from various states. The main 
point of the attack was that Seward could not carry 
New York. Soon after the adjournment of the con- 



SEWAED AND THE CHICAGO CONVE>fTION. 215 

vention, "William Curtis l^oyes, who was a delegate, 
told me (and there could not have been higher au- 
thority for the statement than this learned lawyer) 
that a careful canvass of the ISTew York delegation 
showed that nearly one fourth of its members be- 
lieved it was extremely doubtful if Seward could ob- 
tain a majority at the polls in that state. This doubt 
was an element of great weakness in Seward's can- 
vass at Chicago. The Barnburners in the Eepublican 
party were generally against him. Perhaps the main 
stumblino;-block over which he fell in the convention 
was Thurlow Weed. As events finally culminated, 
it Avas clear that Seward could have carried New 
York, for the Southern conspirators against the Union 
were determined that the Eepublican candidate, who- 
ever he was, should be elected. 

Mr. Seward was popular among his neighbors On 
the day when the convention was to ballot for a can- 
didate, Cayuga county poured itself into Auburn. 
The streets were full, and Mr. Seward's house and 
grounds overflowed with his admirers. The trees 
waved their branches on the lawn as if betokenincf 
coming victory. Flags were ready to be raised, and 
a loaded cannon was placed at the gate, whose pillars 
bore up two guardian lions. Arrangements had been 
perfected for the receipt of intelligence with unwont- 
ed speed from the scene where the battle was pro- 
ceeding. At Mr. Seward's right hand, just within the 
porch, stood his trusty henchman, Christopher Mor- 
gan. The rider of a galloping steed dashed through 
the crowd with a telegram, and handed it to Seward. 
He read it and passed it to Morgan. For Seward, 



210 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

i 73^ ; for Lincoln, 103 ; and for other aspirants, 189|. 
Morgan repeated it to the multitude, who cheered ve- 
hemently. Then came the tidings of the second bal- 
lot : For Seward, 18-1| ; for Lincoln, 181 ; and for 
others, dd^. " I shall be nominated on the next bal- 
lot," said Seward, and the throng in the house ap- 
plauded, and those on the lawn and in the street ech- 
oed the cheers. The next messenger from the tele- 
graph office lashed his horse into a run. The telegram 
read, " Lincoln nominated. T. AV." Seward turned 
as pale as ashes. The sad tidings crept through 
the vast concourse. The flags were furled, the can- 
non was rolled away, and Cayuga county went home 
with a clouded brow. Mr. Seward retired to rest at 
a late hour, and the night breeze in the tall trees 
sighed a requiem over the blighted hopes of ]^ew 
York's eminent son. 

Mr. Seward felt his defeat at Chicago beyond all 
power of expression, and he never forgave those wdio 
had actively contributed to produce it. In incensed 
moments he accused some men wrongfully, as he sub- 
sequently admitted. He was a good hater, and lay 
in wait to ]3unish his foes. He doubtless defeated 
General Wadsworth for Governor of IS^ew York in 
1862. Wadsworth was then military commander at 
Washington, and Seward was Secretary of State. 
Wadsworth told me that Seward was " dead against 
him''' all through the campaign. He rather surprised 
me by saying that Weed wanted him elected. Per- 
haps this was due to the fact that thirty-five years 
before Weed and the father of General AYads worth 
had stood shoulder to shoulder in the Anti-Masonic 



SEWAKD AND GREELEY. 217 

party in western 'New York. I could relate many 
marked instances within my own knowledge where 
Seward's lightning strokes fell on Isew York Repub- 
licans who had opposed his nomination in 1860. If 
bitter exclamations, welling up from the heart, can 
prove anything, they demonstrated the depth and in- 
tensity of his mortification and anger. More than to 
any other one man he attributed his failure to reach 
the goal of his ambition to Horace Greeley. For 
twenty jesirs they were coadjutors in poUtics, but in 
1854 they became estranged, and never after were 
in close accord. The}^ descended to their graves in 
the same autumn, Seward in October and Greeley in 
November, 18T2. Crushed Presidential aspirations 
paved the path of each to the tomb. It was just 
twenty years since Clay and "Webster had gone to the 
spirit land by the same dark and dreary road. 

Mr. Seward's successor was to be elected to the 
Senate in 1801, he being about to enter Lincoln's 
Cabinet. Mr. Seward's and Mr. "Weed's candidate 
Avas William M. Evarts. His principal antagonist 
was Horace Greeley, but Ira Harris, whom "Weed 
hated a little less than he did Greeley, held about 
twenty votes as a balance of power. There were a 
dozen or more votes floating around loose. The Re- 
publican nomination was equivalent to an election. 
The prize was exceptionably valuable, for the Senator 
would exert great influence in the distribution of pat- 
ronage and otherwise under the new administration. 
Evarts and Harris were on the ground weeks previ- 
ous to the day of trial, and Albany was full of sup- 
porters of the rival aspirants. Greeley was at the 
10 



218 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

West lecturing. Governor Morgan favored Evarts, 
and on the evening of the caucus gave Weed the pos- 
session of the Executive Chamber for the Evarts head- 
quarters. De Witt C. Littlejohn, tall and lithe, was 
Weed's lieutenant. Greeley and Evarts ran about 
neck and neck. Harris held the balance. There were 
a dozen or fifteen floaters. For three ballots the re- 
sult hardly changed. Suddenly Greeley shot ahead 
of Evarts, and it looked as if he M^ould win on the 
next ballot. Pale as ashes, Weed sat smoking a cigar 
Avithin earshot of the bustle in the crowded Assembly 
room, where the caucus sat. Littlejohn stalked over 
the heads of the spectators, and reported to Weed. 
Unmindful of the fact that he had a cigar in his 
mouth, Weed lighted another and put it in, then rose 
in great excitement, and said to Littlejohn, " Tell the 
Evarts men to go right over to Harris — to Harris — 
to Haekis !" The order was given in the caucus. 
They wheeled into line like IS'apoleon's Old Guard, 
and Harris was nominated. Cannon reverberated on 
Capitol hill. They were not fired by the Weed-Ev- 
arts faction. 

Mr. Seward occupied the seat in the Senate which, 
under the constitutional mode of arrangement, is in 
class number three. From the foundation of the ffov- 
ernment it had been filled by many statesmen of 
shining talents, among whom were Rufus King, De 
Witt Clinton, John Armstrong, Xathan Sanford, Will- 
iam L. Marcy, Silas Wright, and John A. Dix. Its 
prestige had not been tarnished by Mr. Seward. 
Though defeated in his attempt to reach this elevated 
position in 1861, Mr. Evarts achieved it twenty-four 



SEWARD AND EVARTS. 219 

years later, but through auspices quite different from 
those that seconded his effort in the earlier struggle. 
In the intervening period the country had borne up 
under colossal events that might suffice to make a 
century bend. Mr. Seward, Mr. Weed, and Mr. Mor- 
gan had gone to the tomb, and Mr. Evarts, in his old 
age, was lifted into the chair that Koscoe Conkling 
had voluntarily vacated, by politicians w^ho had prob- 
ably never heard of Rufus King, and knew little of 
William H. Seward. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

Lincoln's Cabinet. — Chase Pushed in. — David Davis, Confidential 
Adviser of Lincoln. — Mrs. Lincoln "Sub-President." — Notices 
of Sew^ard, Chase, Cameron, Bates, Blair, and Welles. — Bick- 
erings in the Cabinet. — Chase and Seward Grapple. — Bray- 
Dickinson and Marcus Curtius. — Down in Dixie in April, 1861. 
— Narrow Escape from Secessionists. — General Butler and his 
Troops. — Colonel Jones and his Regiment Going through Balti- 
more. — First Blood of the War.— Notice of Edwin M. Stanton, 
the War Secretary. 

Aftek it was known that Mr. Seward was to be 
Secretary of State great efforts were made by Yice- 
President Hamlin, Mr. Greeley, Mr. Dana, Mr. Wads- 
worth, the elder Blair, ex-Senator Carroll, and others 
of that type, to get Mr. Chase into the Treasury De- 
partment, as an offset to Mr. Seward. The President 
and Chase were on the same floor at Willard's Hotel. 
Mr. Chase had just been cbo3en a Senator in Congress. 
In ignorance of the President's intentions, he repaired 
to the Capitol, and was sworn as Senator, when the 
message appointing him Secretary of the Treasury 
was opened in his presence. The case of Gideon 
Welles was not quite so singular. When Mr. Lin- 
coln was stumping Connecticut, in the spring of 18G0, 
Welles accompanied him through the state. At Wash- 
ington he told me he was to go into the Cabinet ; and 
when asked what portfolio he was to take, said he 
was not sure, but supposed he would be Postmaster- 
general. 

y . 



Lincoln's cabinet. 221 

I could put on paper many more things Vv^hich I 
personally know about Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet than I 
shall. I am constrained to omit some of the raciest. 
David Davis, then in his prime, came to Washington 
in the trail of the new President. In his vigorous 
style he took an active part in the construction of 
the Cabinet. He stood closer to Mr. Lincoln than 
was then generally supposed. In the controversies 
that already appeared, and which subsequently ri- 
pened into bitterness, Judge Davis was understood to 
lean towards Mr. Seward. Who that witnessed the 
scene can forget how, in the gusty two weeks that 
foreboded the storm, Davis stamped back and forth 
among the male and female politicians that crowded 
the corridors at Willard's, doing great and small er- 
rands for large and little people, with hat cocked 
awry on his head, in the free-and-easy fasliion of the 
boundless West. Mrs. Lincoln, who arrived at Wash- 
ington with the idea that she was a sort of sub-Pres- 
ident, was suspected of communicating her wishes 
in respect to the composition of the Cabinet to the 
much-bored and badgered friend of her husband. She, 
too, was understood to be on the Seward- Weed side 
of the pending contest, and opposed to the Chase- 
Greeley clique. Current gossip reported that, when 
a protest went up to the President against this inter- 
meddling of the mistress of the robes, he replied, in 
characteristic phrase, " Tell the gentlemen not to be 
alarmed, for I myself manage all important matters. 
In little things I have got along through life by let- 
ting my wife run her end of the machine pretty much 
in her own wav." 



222 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

Perhaps Mr. Lincoln was wise in selecting his Cab- 
inet mainly from rivals whom he had overthrown or 
absorbed at the Chicago Convention. The former 
lists inclnded Seward, Chase, Cameron, and Bates, 
while Blair, Smith, and Welles represented factions 
that liad been at the best his cool friends in that try- 
ing emergency. I had often spoken from the plat- 
form with snch members of the new Cabinet as were 
accustomed to address public meetings, and knew the 
others well except Mr. Bates, a quiet, retired gentle- 
man, who Avould not have been dreamed of for Attor- 
ney-General had not Mr, Greeley been supporting 
him as a make-shift candidate for the Presidential 
nomination. Nothing but the pressure of the civil 
war and the patience of Mr. Lincoln kept these in- 
congruous materials together for six months. Nor 
was the harmony of the Cabinet improved when Ed- 
win M. Stanton, nine months after its creation, took 
the place of Simon Cameron as Secretary of War. I 
do not rely on rumors or inferences or information 
from the newspapers or other outside sources when I 
say that Chase Avas stubborn, jealous, and always in- 
triguing against some of his associates, especially 
Seward. Blair, too, was given to plotting and con- 
tention, and what he lacked in capacity to cope with 
his colleagues was supplied by the cool sagacity of his 
long-headed father and the hot temper of his cour- 
ageous brother, Frank, junior. Amid these warring 
elements Seward usually appeared self -poised, con- 
scious of his power, and satisfied with his superior 
influence at the White House. He parted with his 
temper now and then, when friends pressed him to 



SEWAED AND CHASE. 223 

perform impossibilities, as, for example, on the occa- 
sion of a visit from leading ISTew York Eepublicans of 
bis type, who complained that their followers were 
not receiving a due share of Federal patronage. It 
was reported and believed that he broke into a rage, 
exclaimincr, in substance, " Why come to me about 
this ? Go to the White House ! I, who bv every 
right ought to have been chosen President ! what am 

I now ? nothing but Abe Lincoln's little clerk." 

Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, usually steered 
clear of these feuds, and minded his own business. 
Mr. Stanton was sometimes drawn into them. I shall 
speak more particularly of the great War Secretary in 
another place. 

Xotorious was the superiority of Seward over 
Chase in the handling of Federal patronage, and the 
consequent mortification of Chase. I will give one 
illustration of this, out of many that fell under my 
notice. I must first tell of vv^hom I am speaking. In 
the winter of 1811, I w^as an onlooker at a debate, in 
the Senate at xilbanv, on the causes of Mr. Yan Bu- 
ren's defeat in 1810. John Hunter, a Democrat, of 
Westchester, a refined gentleman and a classical schol- 
ar, declared that Yan Buren's courage in placing him- 
self in the chasm between a corrupt bank and a pa- 
triotic people had its fitting historic parallel in the 
Roman Forum when Marcus Curtius leaped into the 
abyss to save the republic. Andrew B. Dickinson, 
familiarly called Bray Dickinson, a Whig, of Steuben, 
illiterate and rough-hewn, but a strong debater, who 
doubtless never tiU then had heard of Marcus Curtius, 
replied to Hunter. When he came to the classical 



224 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

portion of the speech, he said that the cliflference be- 
tween that Eoman " feller," Curtis, and Yan Buren 
was, that Curtis jumped into the gap of his own ac- 
cord, but the people throw'' d Van Buren in. 

When Mr. Lincoln became President, Mr. Dickinson 
and Edward I. Chase, the brother of Secretary Chase, 
were rival aspirants for the office of Marshal of 
[Northern Xew York. Secretary Chase took deep in- 
terest in his brother's success. He procured for him 
the recommendation of Attorney -general Bates, and 
as this office lay within his department, it w^as sup- 
posed that this ended the controversy. Dickinson 
had long been a devoted follower of Mr. Seward, and 
the Secretary of State now put forth every exertion 
for his old friend. It was a stand up fight between 
the two secretaries. Seward prevailed, and the bad- 
gered President appointed Dickinson. When the news 
came to Chase, it was a scene for a painter. His eye- 
brows tw^itched more nervously than usual, and his 
breath was short and hot as he spitefully said, " What 
a place you ISTew York men have got me into !" Hav- 
ing won the day, Dickinson said that Seward advised 
him to take his commission (if it may be so called) to 
Secretary Chase, and tell him he felt sorry for him 
and his brother, and that, as Mr. Seward had offered 
him (Dickinson) his pick of the foreign missions, he 
would decline tlie marshalship in his brother's favor. 
Dickinson did this ; and this in substance, and much 
more of the same kind, Dickinson detailed before a 
large circle in the public hall of a Washington hotel, 
seeming to take special pleasure in telling how badly 
Secretary Chase felt, and how he pitied him, and hoAv 



THE MOB AT BALTIMORE. 225 

glad Chase was to get the appointment for his broth- 
er on these terms, and that Mr. Seward had gener- 
oiisl}^ opened his book to him, and he had selected 
the mission to Nicaragua. 

Several contests occurred between the two secreta- 
ries over places more important than this marshal- 
ship, and their oppugnation rose far above offices, and 
reached measures and policies, till they gave Mr. Lin- 
coln as much trouble in his Cabinet as General Wash- 
ington had with Jefferson and Hamilton. The sharp 
criticisms I heard from Mr. Chase on some of his col- 
leagues, and even on the President, would be inter- 
esting reading. Probably Mr. Lincoln was glad to 
place him at the head of the Supreme Bench, where, 
doubtless, Mr. Chase Avas glad to go. 

As already stated, I left Washington for New York 
in April, 18G1. I had witnessed the arrival at the 
Capitol of the first volunteer troops that came to its 
rescue on the 19th of the month. It was that brave 
Massachusetts regiment commanded by Colonel Ed- 
ward F. Jones (now Lieutenant-Governor of New 
York), some of whose members had been slain while 
passing through Baltimore, and all of whom, doubt- 
less, remembered that it was the anniversary of the 
battle of Lexington, fought eighty-six years before. 
I found Baltimore under the control of a mob. A 
]iortion of them were armed with muskets, stolen 
from an arsenal. While circulating among them (this 
was on Sunday) their murderous purj)oses were read- 
ily perceived. The telegraph wires and railroad tracks 
between Baltimore and Havre de Grace (where trains 
cross the Susquehanna) had been destroyed. Neyer- 
10^^ 



226 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

theless, somebody had obtained a copy or two of that 
number of the New York Herald which declared in 
favor of maintaining the Union by force. The man- 
ifesto was read to a great throng, and it was easy to 
pick out the Secessionists by the fall of their coun- 
tenances. 

On Monday, a small party of us hired at an exor- 
bitant rate a man to carry us to Havre de Grace. He 
proved to be a deputy sheriff of Harford County, re- 
siding at Bel Air, who had just come to Baltimore 
with passengers from the Korth. Baltimore was 
then a nest of rebels, and Maryland was on the verge 
of secession. The towns we went through were in- 
flamed with excitement. I was on the box with our 
sheriff, who seemed to know everybody, and would 
shout to the crowds, " Hurrah for Jeff. !" at the same 
time punching me and saying, " I'll take care of my 
load." We stopped at Bel Air to dine. Our wagon 
istood in the street with half a dozen trunks marked 
" New York," and so on, which loungers kept curious- 
ly inspecting. We waited a couple of hours after din- 
ner ; tlie horses had been stabled ; the sheriff could 
not be found ; the landlord, whom we had liberally 
rewarded for our dinner, was away, and there were 
no signs of preparation for our departure. The court- 
house Avas near at hand, and I liad noticed that a tu- 
multuous meeting was going on within, while a rough 
crowd hung around the door. After a long delay the 
landlord appeared, a team was attached to the vehi- 
cle, and the landlord shook hands with us, saying, in 
a significant tone, " Gentlemen, you'll find us all right 
the next time you venture down into Dixie." 



be:n"jamix f. butler. 227 

Kow for the cause of our detention. The meet- 
ing at the court-house had been summoned to decide 
whether the county should go with the Secessionists. 
Our arrival had raised a side issue in a small circle of 
violent men, some of whom Avanted to hang us, while 
others proposed to detain us for examination. The 
sheriff or landlord interposed, and we Avere allowed 
to depart. On arriving at Havre, Ave found that Gen- 
eral B. F. Butler had been there and captured all the 
ferry-boats for the transportation of Massachusetts 
troops to Washington via Annapolis. We hired a 
rowboat to take us across the Susquehanna to the 
railway depot, Avliich a Pennsylvania regiment Avas 
at that moment entering, the flags flying and drums 
beating. Hall a dozen felloAvs tried to prevent our 
crossing the river. A small scuffle ensued, and Ave 
Avere afloat. They fired muskets at us, but the shades 
of the evening Avere gathering, and they missed the 
mark. I conferred Avitli the commander of the Penn- 
sylvania regiment, giving him the latest information 
from Baltimore and Washington, AAdiither he Avas 
bound, provided he could reach there. 

Irrepressible Ben Butler! His prompt seizure of 
the ferry-boats gave the country a foreshadoAA^ng of 
his stern quality. Clearer than most others he saAV 
the end from the beginning. Baltimore never be- 
haA^ed so well as when coAvering under the muzzles of 
his cannon. But Maryland Avas sIoav to take in the 
situation, and did not come to its senses till General 
George B. McClellan shut the doors of its legislature 
to prevent the state being carried out of the Union. 
And so it Avas in Kew Orleans. That turbulent city 



228 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

was kept in good order when ruled by General But- 
ler's pen and sword. 

I liad previously known of Edwin M. Stanton as 
the reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio when I 
saw him in 1856 at Washington, where he had come 
to practise law. We held a chatty interview, in which 
he said we were kindred, his great-grandfather (per- 
chance it was the grandfather), like mine, having 
been a Ehode-Islander. We acted on this assumption 
for a good wliile ; but afterwards an expert in gene- 
alogy, who volunteered to trace our lineage, informed 
U3 that though we sprang from the same stock, our 
common ancestor lived long before King Philip 
pitched his tent on Mount Hope, or Eoger Williams 
put his spade into Providence plantations. He ran 
our line back to A7}7io Domini 1010, which being half 
a century before William the Conqueror set foot on 
Saxon soil, I begged him to pause lest he land our 
progenitors in the Silurian epoch when the first Dr. 
Darwin electrified the mollusks by foreshadowing the 
evolution theory of the origin of man. 

I met Mr. Stanton many times while he was at the 
head of the War Department. If he Avas as brutal 
an administrator of that office as his enemies were 
wont to assert, I never discovered it. He discharged 
its duties according: to his own views of riHit and 
expediency during a civil war whose magnitude has 
no parallel in modern times, and when the armies of 
the belligerents were twice as large as the forces ever 
commanded by the great ISTapoleon. A dozen Wa- 
terloos were f ought by troops which he had sum- 
moned to the field, and, like Pitt and Carnot, he was 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 229 

the minister who oro;anized victory. He died, worn 

CD %J J 

out by patriotic labors. AVhile the great secretary 
was living, Northern demagogues and Southern trai- 
tors denounced him. Their calumnies have not ceased 
since he was laid to rest. I have seen him in very 
trying and sometimes extremely irritating circum- 
stances, but only once was he rude or even discourte- 
ous. I will briefly refer to this rather amusing inci- 
dent. His office was hung with maps that bore on 
their surface mysterious marks in inks of various col- 
ors. He had left his room unoccupied for a few min- 
utes. On returning to it he found a plainly-dressed 
countryman lifting up and looking at one or two of 
the maps. The secretary violently exclaimed, " What 
rebel emissary do we find here overhauling the secret 
archives of the "War Department ? AVho are you !" 
he thundered ? " This explains how it is that impor- 
tant intelligence leaks out of this office, and falls into 
the hands of the enemy. Who are you V He then 
pounded the bell for a messenger, and in the uproar 
the countryman, pale as a ghost, contrived to make 
his way out of the building. He soon returned from 
Willard's Hotel, accompanied by his member of Con- 
gress, who proceeded to explain that his constituent 
had two sons in the army, and one had been wounded 
and was pining in a hospital, and the father wanted 
permission to go through the lines and take him 
home ; and that he had a letter of introduction in his 
pocket from the Congressman to the secretary when 
he stalked accidentally into his empty room half an 
hour ago ; and so on and so forth. Stanton instantly 
comprehended the situation. He bowed and bowed, 



230 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

shook hands with, the Cono-ressman and the country- 
man, and bowed again to each, but made no aUusion 
to the previous explosion. He listened to a short 
story about the wounded soldier, and immediately 
drafted tlie orders foi' his father to visit the hospital 
and take him home. On the way back to Willard's 
the Congressman offered to bet fifty dollars with his 
delighted constituent that he would have failed to 
carry his point if the Secretary had not burst into a 
passion when he caught him overhauling the maps 
and called him a rebel emissary. 

I witnessed another scene that illustrated the Sec- 
retar3'^'s proverbial promptness of decision and rapid- 
ity of executipn. One morning when he came to his 
office he found a miscellaneous company of thirty or 
forty men and women (mostly of the middle class) 
awaitino- his arrival. By his direction a messeno:er 
conducted them into an adjoining room, in the centre 
of which was a little desk resting on a pillar. Soon 
the secretary entered, bowing suavely, and took his 
stand by the desk, while I settled into a chair and 
looked on. He called to his side the oldest and plain- 
est-dressed woman in the crowd, and mildly asked, 
" Madam, Avhat can I do for you ?" He listened to a 
short narrative, drew up and gave her a brief note, 
and told a messenger to take '' this lady " to the Adju- 
tant-general's office. Instantly another aged w^oman 
stood at the desk and handed him a letter. He read 
it, endorsed several lines on the back, and she dis- 
appeared under the guidance of a messenger. To the 
next he said, " Madam, your business belongs to the 
Navy Department. Messenger, show this lady the 



EDVv'IN M. STANTON. 231 

way to the ISTavy Department." To one he gravely 
remarked, after glancing over her papers, " This is a 
serious matter. I must examine it carefully. Please 
step into my office, and wait till I come." And in 
this manner he went through the entire list, patient- 
ly, urbanely, quietly, disposing of every case right on 
the spot, except three or four that were quite intri- 
cate. He cleared the room in forty-five minutes. 

A Republican client of mine, a large grocer, had 
trusted sutlers in the armv of the Potomac to the 
amount of several thousand dollars. He came to me 
in terror, armed witli a letter of Governor Morgan, 
endorsing his patriotism and integrity, and said I 
must go to AVasliington with him in the next train, 
and procure permission for him to pass through the 
lines to collect what the sutlers owed him or he should 
lose itj/b;' lie Icneio our army was about to attack the 
enemy ^ and the sutlers would be scattered, and per- 
haps knocked to pieces. "We arrived in Washington 
the next morning. When the Secretary reached the 
office I humorously remarked that I wished to make 
a draft on the well-known urbanity of all the Stan- 
tons for many generations, " which I am doing so 
much to dissipate," broke in the Secretary, in the 
same vein. I explained my business, vouched for the 
loyalty and prudence of my client, showed the letter 
of Mr. Morgan, and expressed the hope that, in such 
an exigency, he would let the grocer pass the lines 
and collect his dues, or he would be ruined. Stanton 
struck the table and rose from his chair. " How does 
this man know that the army is about to move and 
fight a battle V " How does he know anything about 



232 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

it?" I told him I had not the slightest idea. He 
then went stamping around the room, wondering why 
outsiders got up these preposterous reports, but at the 
same time expressing liis indignation at the leaks that 
were constantly occurring in the War and Navy de- 
partments — all of which satisfied me that the army 
was about to attack the enemy. Mr. Stanton resumed 
his seat, cooled off, sent for Mr. Wolcott, one of his 
assistants (and his brother-in-law, I believe), and told 
liim to hear me, and do what I wished. My client 
went through the lines, obtained his money, and w^as 
just leaving w^hen our artillery opened fire. 

The following anecdote gives a glimpse of the fa- 
miliar relations subsisting between the President and 
the Secretary. Owen Lovejoy, a member of Con- 
gress from Illinois, obtained from Mr. Lincoln a prom- 
ise to issue a certain war order, but added, " You must 
go and tell Stanton about it." lie went. " Did the 
President say he would issue such an order ?" inquired 
the Secretary. " He did," responded Lovejoy. " Then 
he is a fool— a great fool," replied Stanton. Lovejoy 
returned to the President, and repeated the conversa- 
tion between him and the Secretary. " Did Stanton 
say I was a fool ?" inquired Lincoln. " He did," said 
Lovejoy. " Then I think I am a fool, for Stanton is 
generally right," was the characteristic reply of the 
President. 

My authority for the following incident was pres- 
ent at the Cabinet meeting where it occurred : Mr. 
Stanton, the Secretary of War, came in with the de- 
tails of a foreshadowed plan for a simultaneous attack 
on the rebels at three points, in which he vrould want 



EDWIN M. STANTON. — GIDEON WELLES. 233 

a little assistance from the ISTavy. Stanton described 
his first place of attack, and said the troops would 
need the co-operation of one or two gunboats. The 
President, addressing Secretary Gideon Welles, asked 
if they could be furnished. lie wriggled around in 
his chair, and said he couldn't tell, but w^ould inquire, 
and let them know at the next meeting of the Cabinet. 
And this, in substance, was his response on all the 
three points of Stanton's programme. Putting one 
of his feet on the table, the vexed President said, " Mr. 
Secretary, w^ill you please tell us all you know about 
the N'avy, and then we shall know all you don't know 
about it." I have thought that the other m,embers 
of the Cabinet did not fully appreciate Mr. Welles. 
I was much w^ith him in the Fremont campaign, and 
know that he was a gentleman of sound judgment 
and tireless industry. The Cabinet was torn by fac- 
tions, which the Secretary of the Navy tried to steer 
clear of, and mind his own affairs. 

Mr. Stanton would sometimes express his weariness 
of the toils and trials of the War Department, and his 
strong desire to return to the practice of the law. 
When consulting with a general of the army, who 
was a lawyer, about the Military Governorship of 
Washington, he gave vent to his ardent feelings in 
that direction, but, suddenly checking the current, he 
exclaimed, "However, I shall remain here and try 
our Great Cause through to the end." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Mr. Lincoln and Dr. McPlieeters. — Lincoln's Story. — Roscoe 
Conkling and Isoali Davis Candidates for the Senate in 1867. — 
Conlding Elected. — Defeat of Morgan by Fenton for the Senate 
in 1809. — Escape of Marshall O. Roberts from the Lobby. — 
Democratic National Convention of 1868. — Seymour Favors 
Chase. — Vallandigham's Course.— Seymour Nominated. — Grant 
Elected. — Seymour Urged to Accept the Senatorship in 1875; 
Refuses; Why. — Seward's Trip around the World. — Death of 
Seward in 1872.— R. B. Hayes Running for Governor of Ohio in 
1875. — Senator Thurman's Singular Prediction.- Conkling and 
Piatt Resign from the Senate, and Lapham and Miller Succeed 
them in 1881. — Conkling's Success at the Bar. 

My brother, Eev. R. L. Stanton, D.D., was a leader 
in the Presbyterian Church, and a warm friend of ]\f r. 
Lincohi during the war. In the great struggle he 
was aggressively on the side of the Union, and in fa- 
vor of the emancipation policy of Mr. Lincoln. In 
1862-63 the Eev. Dr. McPheeters, a prominent Pres- 
byterian, was preaching at St. Louis. Major-general 
Curtis commanded in that military department. One 
Sunday Dr. McPheeters uttered some sentiments that 
were deemed disloyal. The next Sunday Dr. Mc- 
Pheeters found the doors of his church closed by or- 
der of General Curtis. There was immediate trouble, 
not alone in St. Louis, but in Washington. A com- 
mittee, composed of both factions, went to see the 
President. Finding Dr. Stanton in Washington, they 
requested him to go with them to the White House 



TRESIDEXT LINCOLN. 235 

and present them to Mr. Lincoln. The President lis- 
tened patiently, and then spoke as follows : 

" I can best illustrate my position in regard to 3'our 
St. Louis quarrel by telling- a story. A man in Illi- 
nois had a large watermelon patch, on which he hoped 
to make money enough to carry him over the year. 
A big hog broke through the log-fence nearly every 
night, and the melons were gradually disappearing. 
At length the farmer told his son John to get out the 
guns, and they would promptly dispose of the disturb- 
er of their melon-patch. They followed the tracks to 
the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They 
discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded 
through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred 
yards, when the tracks again went into tlie creek, but 
promptly turned up on the other side. Once more 
the hunters buffeted the mud and water, and again 
struck the lead and pushed on a few furlongs, when 
the tracks made another dive into the creek. Out of 
breath and patience, the farmer said, ' John, you cross 
over and go up on that side of the creek, and I'll keep 
upon this side, for I believe the old fellow is on both 
sides,' Gentlemen," concluded Mr. Lincoln, " that is 
just where I stand in regard to 3"our controversies 
in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my 
generals to run tlie churches, and I can't allow 3"our 
ministers to preach rebellion. Go home, preach the 
Gospel, stand by the Union, and don't disturb the 
government with any more of your petty quar- 
rels." 

Dr. Stanton said that, when the belligerents reached 
Willard's Hotel, they had a hearty laugh, and made up 



23 G EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

their minds that they would go home and follow the 
President's advice. 

In January, 1867, Mr, Conkling, having won a high 
reputation in the House of Eepresentatives, was a can- 
didate for United States Senator. He was supported 
with fidelity and enthusiasm by a large body of the 
most skilful politicians in the state. His leading op- 
ponent Avas Xoah Davis, then on the Bench of the 
Supreme Court in the Eighth District. In the con- 
test at Albany Mr. Conkling prevailed over Judge 
Davis by a narrow majority. The learning, acumen, 
and versatility displayed by Mr. Davis on the Bench 
in western New York, and as Presiding Justice of 
the Supreme Court in the metropolitan city, and while 
a member of the Forty-first Congress and United 
States Attornev in the Southern District of ISTew 
York, are recognized by his fellow-citizens. But it 
is not so widely known that, in the Free-soil conflict 
of 1848, he was an active Barnburner. I was on the 
platform with him before a large out-door meeting in 
Albion in that campaign. He was then the law part- 
ner of Sanford E. Church. He would have ably rep- 
resented the state as a Senator in Congress. 

In 1863 Edwin D. Morgan wielded the influence 
he had acquired in two gubernatorial terms to secure 
an election to the Senate. His six years at Washing- 
ton Avould expire in March, 1869. He had no doubt 
that he would be his own successor. He heard that 
Eeuben E. Fenton sought his place. It did not occur 
to him that the wily Chautauqua sachem had just com- 
pleted four years' service in the Executive Chamber 
at All^any, and still tarried in that city to manage 



EDWIN D. MOEGAX. — REUBEN E, FENTON. 237 

his Senatorial canvass. Morgan was cautioned to 
take heed to the selection of a Speaker of the Assem- 
bly, for he would wield great power, especially in the 
appointment of the committees, most of which in 
those days were lucrativ^e. Morgan declared himself 
satisfied with Truman G. Younglove for Speaker. 
He was under a strange delusion, for Younglove was 
the fast friend of Fenton. 

The new Speaker took the chair at the opening of 
the session ; the Assembly met daily, but no commit- 
tees were announced. "Weeks rolled away, the Speak- 
er's rooms were all the time full of applicants for fat 
berths, and by and by he proclaimed that no commit- 
tees would be appointed till after the Senator was 
chosen. The capital city was crowded with Republi- 
cans from every portion of the state. Fenton was 
as unruffled as Chautauqua lake in summer. Morgan 
began to be disturbed, broke up his quarters at Wash- 
ington, came to Albany, and put hnnself at the head 
of his forces. Eumor was at fault if plenty of money 
was not in circulation. It was asserted, and believed, 
that $12,000 were paid for the sole item of bare rooms 
at one hotel wherein to bivouac Morgan's troops. So 
hard pressed were Fenton's lines that he invited his 
rich and liberal friend, Marshall O. Eoberts, of JSTew 
York, to take his place as a candidate. lie came up, 
but after looking over the ground, and seeing a de- 
mand for $250,000 by the lobby staring him in the 
face, he returned to the city, because it Avas feared 
that in an attempt to carry all the Fenton men over 
to Eoberts a few might fall out of line. It was 
amusing to hear Eoberts, in his characteristic style. 



238 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

describe liis escape out of the hands of the hungry 
Albany lobby on this occasion. 

The evening for holding the caucus arrived. No- 
body "who was at the capital during the previous 
twenty-four hours will ever forget the exciting scene. 
The caucus assembled. It elected its president, sec- 
retaries, and tellers, and now the Eepublican Speaker, 
who had all the committees in his brain, rose, and in 
a fitly framed speech nominated for Senator in Con- 
gress Eeuben E, Fenton. It hardly need be added 
that those who had been badgering him for several 
weeks for lirst-class places on leading and lucrative 
committees read between the lines, and were pretty 
sure that they saw, in clearest words, dropping from 
the lips of Mr. Younglove : 

" Now all you that want me to listen to you two 
days hence, had better listen to me now." 

The result was that Mr. Fenton was nominated on 
the first ballot. Mr. Morgan paid his bills and went 
back to "Washington, a wiser and a sadder man. 

The Democratic Convention of 18G8, for nominat- 
ing a candidate for President, met in Tammany Hall. 
Mr. Seymour presided, and Mr. Tilden was chairman 
of the New York delegation. It was the first time 
the Democracy of the nation had assembled together 
for eight years. The war was over, slavery had dis- 
appeared, and old party lines were faint and feeble. 
The candidates for the Presidential nomination were 
numerous, but Mr. Seymour was not among them. 
He favored Salmon P. Chase. He had prepared a 
speech which he intended to deliver, when an oppor- 
tune moment arrived, for presenting Chase's name. 



SEYMOUR AND CHASE. 239 

But he failed to bring certain elements in the l!^ew 
York delegation to adopt his plan, and it was quietly 
dropped. It was asserted and believed that Clement 
L. A'allandigham, a delegate from Ohio, who was hos- 
tile to Chase, feared that Seymour's wishes might 
finally prevail, and therefore took the lead in the 
irresistible stampede that forced the nomination on 
Seymour himself, in spite of his earnest protestations. 
I have seen some of the private correspondence that 
passed between the ex-Governor and the Chief-Justice 
at this period, wherein the latter warmly thanked 
the former for the efforts he had made to give him 
the nomination. The light shed on coalitions of this 
sort by the result of Mr. Greelev's candidacy, four 
years later, leads to the belief that if Chase had been 
nominated, in 1868, he would have fared as badly as 
Seymour did. 

Mr. Fenton's term as Senator in Congress expired 
in 1875. The Democrats controlled the legislature. 
It was the first time in thirty years that they had 
been able to elect a Senator. Governor Seymour was 
pressed to take the office. The Democrats in the 
Senate and Assembly were eager to confer it upon 
him. He was urged to accept from all quarters. I 
plied him through the newspapers and by correspond- 
ence. He resolutely refused. He silenced me by a 
long letter, breathing the noblest sentiments, which 
I would print here if I could lay my hand upon it. 
In it he enforced with rare felicity of diction the 
proposition that to exert great influence in public af- 
fairs it is not necessary to hold office. I have ample 
grounds for supposing that one of the reasons for his 



24:0 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

peremptory refusal to go to the Senate was that he 
felt that deafness Avas creeping upon hira, and he did 
not like to enter an arena with waning powers, where 
his name for a quarter of a century had ranked so 
high. 

I was strongly in favor of the return of Mr. Conk- 
ling and Thomas C. Piatt to the Senate in 1881, 
after their resignation. I had been a resigning Sena- 
tor, in a very small way, just thirty years before, and 
knew how it was myself. So I stood by the resign- 
ing Senators on this broader and grander field. I had 
better luck than they, for I was re-elected, while they 
"were defeated. But I Avould not again resign, to pre- 
vent in that way the passage of a fifteen million un- 
constitutional canal bill. I do not know whether they 
would again resign, to prevent by that method the 
appointment of a collector of customs for New York. 
Their unwise rejection by the legislature, and the 
election of Elbridge G. Lapham and Warner Miller 
in their stead, was far-reaching in its consecpences. 
It gave Alonzo B. Cornell leave to retire to private 
life at the close of his first gubernatorial term, and 
gave James G. Blaine long-coveted leisure for employ- 
ing a graphic pen on an interesting period of modern 
history. 

I have no personal knowledge that enables me to 
penetrate the motives that impelled Mr. Conkling to 
resign from tlie Senate. Perhaps he had grown weary 
of his protracted labors in Congress, Possibly he saw 
foreshadowed on the horizon factional feuds in the 
Garfield-Blaine administration, and, as a Republican, 
had no wish to participate in them. If, however, the 



WILLIAM H. SEWAKD. 241 

chief end he had in. view was to resume the undis- 
turbed practice of the law, then the opportune mo- 
ment he selected for carrying this purpose into effect 
has already been crowned by a success that has few 
parallels in the history of the New York bar. By 
and by Mr. Conkling ma}^ return to politics. He 
has the example of Mr. Seward before him, in the 
six busy years that intervened between the close of 
Seward's service as Governor of Isew York and the 
commencement of his term as Senator at Wash- 
ington. 

On Mr. Seward's return, in the fall of 1871, from 
his trip around the globe, Mr. Hugh J. Hastings ar- 
ranged a plan for my going with the Governor to 
Auburn, accompanied by a stenographer, to get a 
condensed report of his journey for publication in the 
New York Sun. Mr. Dana and I conferred, and I 
Avent up. The report filled a broadside of the Sim, 
and, as ]\[r. Seward subsequently told me, it saved 
him much trouble, for, when any of his friends asked 
him about his trip, he immediately gave them a copy 
of the newspaper. Of the many incidents that oc- 
curred during this trip to Auburn I will relate but 
one. The morning after our arrival Mr. Seward was 
walking in his grounds. The servant was pointing 
him to this, that, and the other thing, but he kept 
saying, " Show me the bird." I did not understand 
what he meant. Soon we stood before the largest 
eagle I ever saw, enclosed in a great cage. The Gov- 
ernor looked at the eagle ; the eagle looked at th^ 
Governor. They exchanged winks, as much as to 
say, " We understand each other." Mr. Seward then 

■ 11 



242 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

exclaimed, with some emotion, "When 1 was in 
Alaska they gave me that eagle, and that is all I 
ever got for my trouble in negotiating the Alaska 
treaty, except a great deal of undeserved personal 
abuse." 

In the autumn of 1872 Mr. Seward died. In 1828 
I had been a member of the Young Men's State Con- 
vention, over which Mr. Seward presided. I now 
stood by his open grave. In the intervening forty- 
four years he had played a great part in the history 
of his country. 

The contest for the Governorship of Ohio, in 1875, 
between William Allen and Rutherford B. Hayes, 
exhibited features of national importance. I spent a 
few weeks in the state while this extraordinary cam- 
paign was in progress. Both candidates were ad- 
dressing large audiences. Allen Avas impressive, saga- 
cious, bold. Hayes was respectable, commonplace, 
feeble. Among other distinguished speakers whom 
I heard were ex-Governor Koyes, afterwards Minister 
to France, Senator McDonald, of Indiana ; Judge 
Taft, subsequently Minister to Austria, and Senator 
Allen G. Thurman. In a conversation with the lat- 
ter at Columbus he made a prediction which then 
seemed to me singular. He said that if Hayes de- 
feated Allen in the pending struggle he would be tlie 
next Republican candidate for the Presidency. Hayes 
did defeat Allen, and he was the candidate. The 
ablest man w^hom I met in my A¥estern tour was Mr. 
Thurman. It must have annoyed eminent statesmen 
like him, aspiring to be President, to see small politi- 
cians preferred before them. The Presidency is dwin- 



ALLEN G. TIIURMAX. 243 

cUing in importance with every passing term. Con- 
gress controls the administration of the Federal gov- 
ernment. The leader of the House and the leader of 
the Senate exert more influence than presidents in 
moulding vital measures of public policy. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Samuel J. Tilden; his Triumph over the Canal Ring and the 
Tweed Ring; his Sudden Death; his Note to tlie Author about 
"Random Recollections." — State Convention of 1874, when he 
■was Nominated for Governor. — The (N. Y.) Suns Editorial 
Article.— Tilden Elected.— The Presidential Contest of 1876.— 
Tilden Dies of Heart Disease. — Ex-Governors Clinton, "Wright, 
Marcy, and Fcnton Fall by the same Malady under Peculiar 
Circumstances. — Notice of Robert L. Stanton, D.D.; his Death 
in i\Iid-Occan in ]\Iay, 1885. — The Presbyterian General Assem- 
bly's Tribute to his Memory. 

WiiEisr those animosities, rivalries, and prejudices 
that spring from party strife have passed away Sam- 
uel J. Tilden will be classed among tlie eminent men 
of his era. I became associated with him in the mem- 
orable contest of 1848, when he stood in the front 
rank of the Barnburners. In the two rather incom- 
patible qualities of calm, studious, and philosophic 
statesmanship, and the capacity to gather, classify, 
and apply the statistics of a political campaign, I do 
not remember to have met his equal. As the Chair- 
man of the Democratic State Committee, he would 
deliver an address that might have honored Thomas 
Jefferson. In the subsequent campaign he would 
handle the figures of the canvass with a skill that 
astonished Thurlow Weed. But far above all else 
rose his genius for administrative reform. While 
Chief Magistrate of the foremost commonwealth in 
the Union he broke in pieces the canal ring in the 



SAMUEL J. TILDEX. 245 

state, and the Tweed ring in the metropolis, -which 
had long been entrenched behind corrupt combina- 
tions that had few parallels in our history for the 
power they had wielded and the audacity they had 
displayed through a series of years. Mr. Tilden there- 
by won the confidence of honest and sagacious men 
in both political parties. The ability and integrity 
wherewith he performed the duties of the gubernato- 
rial office brought to him the Democratic nomination 
to the Presidency in ISTG, I never met a candid, in- 
telligent Republican, who was thoroughly informed 
in regard to the facts, that seemed to doubt that he 
was fairly entitled to a majority of the votes of the 
electoral college in that famous contest. 

I had written the above, and the unfinished manu- 
script was h'ing before me, when I received the tidings 
of Mr. Tilden's sudden death. I need not say that the 
unexpected event impressed me profoundly. He was 
my junior by nine years. How many old acquaint- 
ances have fallen since I issued the first edition of this 
small volume. In February last I sent Mr. Tilden a 
copy of the second edition. He acknowledged it in a 
brief note, which I should not print if he were living. 
I insert it simply because it avouches his capacity at 
so recent a date for devouring books. 

"Greystone, Yonkees, N. Y., Feb. 12, 1886. 
"Dear Mr. Staxto^t,— I ibank you for the copy of your "Ran- 
dom Recollections," wliich I found so interesting that I read it 
through at one sitting. 

" With my best wishes for your health and happiness, I remain, 
" Very truly yours, S. J. Tilden." 

I was at the State Convention of 1874, in Syracuse, 
which nominated Mr. Tilden for Governor. He was 



24:6 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

present as Chairman of the State Committee. Gov- 
ernor Seymour and DeAYitt C. Littlejohn (Greeley Lib- 
eral in 1ST2) were delegates. The convention was far 
from united on the question of the gubernatorial can- 
didate. Many prominent members doubted the expe- 
diency of nominating Mr. Tilden. The NeAv York 
Sun had given voice to these doubts. On the 17th of 
September the convention came to a ballot, when Mr. 
Tilden received 252 votes, ex-Judge Amasa J. Parker 
126, and a few were thrown for others. William 
Dorsheimer (Greeley Liberal in 1872) was unanimous- 
ly nominated for Lieutenant-governor, on motion of 
Mr. Littlejohn. The Democratic campaign opened 
languidly, and for a while it was believed that Gen- 
eral Dix, the Eepublican candidate for Governor, 
would be re-elected. The Sim looked on, kept its 
powder dry, and reserved its fire. By and by Mr. 
Dana suggested that it Avas time for the Sim to hoist 
its colors. On the 7th of October, three weeks after 
the nomination, the following article appeared at the 
head of the editorial columns. If it be in bad taste 
to quote from one's self, then I am a transgressor. It 
is only the death of Mr. Tilden that justifies its pub- 
lication here : 

" One of the most essential requisites for making a good Gov- 
ernor of Kew York is that the man shoukl possess sufficient inde- 
pendence and courage to resist the dictation of the leaders of the 
party which placed him in office. If IVIr. Tilden is elected in No- 
vember he will be, in the particular we have mentioned, one of the 
best Democratic governors the state has ever had. Indeed, in the 
whole list, Silas Wi'ight alone, the most distinguished member of 
the political school in which Mr. Tilden was raised, can be com- 
pared with him. 

" Marcy and Seymour were able and upright in the adminis- 



SILAS WRIGHT AND SAMUEL J. TILDEN. 247 

tration of affairs, but they were strong partisans, and never roso 
to the height of resisting the prevailing current of Democratic 
opinion. But Governor Wright was a thorougli JelTersonian Dem- 
ocrat. His integrity was above reproach, and his leading charac- 
teristic was self-poised independence. On two or three memorable 
occasions he displayed this quality by pursuing a line of policy in 
relation to important measures directly hostile to the sentiments 
and purposes of the great majority of the Democratic part}', both 
in this state and throughout the countrJ^ Early in 1844, when the 
Democracy were running mad in favor of the annexation of Texas, 
Mr. Wright, then in the Senate, persuaded ^Ir. Van Buren to write 
his famous letter against annexation. This letter caused the de- 
feat of Mr. Van Buren's nomination to the Presidency in the Na- 
tional Convention of that year. In the summer of 1846, when ]\Ir. 
Wright was Governor, and the Democracy were running wild in 
favor of the conquest of Mexican territory, in order to plant slavery 
therein, he avowed himself, in the most explicit terms, a supporter 
of the doctrine of the celebrated Wilmot Proviso. This avowal 
drove from Wright just enough rabid Ilunlcers — Bourbons they are 
now called — to defeat his re-election as Governor in that year, 

"For Silas Wright, a prospective candidate for President, to thus 
set himself in opposition to the great body of his party, exhibited 
extraordinary fidelity to convictions and a noble moral courage. 
We have no doubt that under analogous circumstances Mr. Tilden 
would pursue the same course; for on many occasions he has shown 
that his mind is made of like metal with that which composed Mr, 
Wright's. We believe that Mr. Tilden followed the lead of Mr. 
Wright in 1844 and 1846. We know that he carried the creed of 
that eminent disciple of Jefferson and Tompkins to its logical con- 
clusions at the Buffalo Convention of 1848, which brought out Van 
Buren and Adams, in that notable campaign, under the banner of 
'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Press, Free Men.' 

" But Mr. Tilden has displayed his courage and his independ- 
ence of party under far more trying circumstances than those we 
have detailed; and he has shown these qualities in a very marked 
manner, and right under the eyes of those who are to pass upon 
his fitness for the office of Governor. We refer, of course, to his 
agency in breaking up the Tammany ring in 1871, the subsequent 
flight of Conolly, and conviction of Tweed and their associates, 
and many other events which attended or followed that explosion. 



2-lS RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

Nobody doubts that Mr. Tilden was the leader in this struggle. He 
elbowed Richard B. Couolly out of the comptroller's office and 
pushed Andrew H. Green in. He caused the Tammany delegation 
— stained, but regular — to be rejected by the Democratic State Con- 
vention, and he advocated the admission, though without success, 
of the irregular anti-Tammany delegation. Elected to the Assem- 
bly in November of that year, he declined to attend the Democratic 
caucus for nominating a candidate for Speaker, although he was 
then chairman of the Democratic Stale Committee; and he pursued 
a course quite independent of his party to the end of the session. 
By this policy he aroused some hostility among a section of the 
Democratic managers, who were able to send Governor John T. 
ITotfman, instead of him, as one of the delegates at large to the 
Baltimore Convention, which nominated Horace Greeley. To Mr. 
Tilden is largely due the reorganization of Tammany Hall, by turn- 
ing out the old sachems and installing the new regime that now 
controls a society whose powerful influence has been felt for half a 
century in the politics of New York, and whose every representa- 
tive at the recent State Convention cast his vote for Samuel J. Til- 
den, as the nominee for Governor. 

"The fact that Mr. Tilden has done much of what we have re- 
cited, in the face of vigorous Democratic influences, raises a 
strong presumption that if he were Governor of the state he 
would have the courage to pursue the right path, although in 
so doing he might sometimes run counter to the wishes of Demo- 
cratic leaders." 



Mr. Tilden knew nothing of this article till his eye 
fell on it in the Sim. I was told that he ordered five 
thousand copies of the paper for circulation. When 
the October elections of 1874 were over the Demo- 
cratic tidal wave set in all through the country. Mr. 
Tilden carried New York against General Dix by 
more than fift}^ thousand majority. 

Mr. Tilden died of one of the many forms of what 
is called " heart disease." It is a rather remarkable 
coincidence that five of the distinguished statesmen 



CLIXTON. — WKIGHT. — MARCY. 249 

■who filled the office of Governor of Kew York fell 
by this malady. 

On February 11, 1828, De Witt Clinton, then Gov- 
ernor, a man of majestic presence, had been at the 
Executive Chamber in the Capitol attending to offi- 
cial business, the legislature being in session. In the 
evening he was sitting in his private library with his 
son, looking over his afternoon mail. He had a letter 
in his hand, when his head dropped on his breast, and 
he immediately expired. He died of heart disease, 
then little known under that name. 

Silas Wright, a totally different man from Clinton, 
was a part of the time during his public career his 
contemporary, and always his political opponent. On 
August 27, 1847, Mr. Wright went to the post-office 
in his httle town of Canton, in the county of St. Law- 
rence. He was reading a letter when his head sank 
upon the table and he died of heart disease without a 
moment's warning. He had retired from the office 
of Governor the previous January. 

William L. Marcy was Governor for three tenns, 
Secretary of War, and Secretary of State. He went 
out of the latter office on March 4, 1857. On July 4 
of that year he was resting at Ballston Spa. He had 
taken lunch and repaired to his room, where he was 
found an hour afterwards quite dead, with a volume 
of Cowper's poems in his hand. He had expired of 
heart disease. 

Ex-Senator Keuben E. Fenton occupied the guber- 
natorial chair of New York for four years. In Au- 
gust, 1885, Avhile in good health, he was at his desk 
in the First National Bank of Jamestovrn, of which 



250 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

he was President, reading his correspondence. With- 
out the slightest premonition he fell backward in his 
chair, convulsively clutching at a letter he Avas at 
that moment answering, gave a long, gasping breath, 
and soon expired. He died of heart disease. 

I have been at a loss in the selection of the most 
appropriate place in this " random "' work for a notice 
of my last brother. He was a many-sided man, and 
wrote more than he talked, and studied and thought 
more than he talked or wrote. He was a scholar, a 
divine, an author, and an editor ; and he was so thor- 
oughly informed in political affairs that this brief 
tribute to his memory might find a proper place 
among either of those five classes of citizens. 

There were six children in my father's family. All 
were born in Tachaug. I am the only survivor. My 
eldest brother, Eev. Kobert L. Stanton, D.D., was born 
in March, 1810. He was living when the first edition 
of this work was issued. He was graduated at Lane 
Seminary ; was pastor in Mississippi, New Orleans, 
and Ohio ; President of Oakland College, Mississippi, 
and subsequently President of Miami University, 
Ohio ; Professor of Theology in Danville Seminary, 
Kentucky; Moderator of the General Assembly of 
the Presbj^terian Church in 1866 ; and United States 
Government Visitor at West Point. He Avrote much 
for magazines and newspapers, and Avas the author 
of several books and pamphlets. Princeton College 
conferred upon him tlie degree of D.D. Avhile he was 
yet a young man. In May, 1885, he sailed for Eu- 
rope, as had been his wont before, to recuperate en- 
ergies exhausted by mental toil. But unmindful of 



KEV. EGBERT L. STA^'TOX. 251 

the fact that his health was unusually feeble, and that 
he was in the seventy-sixth year of his age, lie car- 
ried the pitcher once too often to the fountain, and it 
was broken. He died at sea on May 28, and was 
buried in mid-ocean. "When the intelligence of his 
decease reached America, the Presbyterian General 
Assembly was in session at Cincinnati. That vener- 
able body placed on its journal this memorial : " The 
General Assembly records its tribute of respect for 
the memory of Rev. Eobert L. Stanton, D.D., Moder- 
ator of the Assembly of 1860. It recognizes the faith- 
fulness and efficiency with which he discharged the 
duties of the office, and the value to the Church of 
his services as pastor, editor, and teacher. Sincerely 
sorrowing for the loss it has sustained, the Assembly 
hereby expresses its sympathy with the bereaved fam- 
ily, and directs that a copy of the foregoing minute, 
attested by the Moderator, and Stated and Permanent 
Clerks, be forwarded to the family of Dr. Stanton. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

American Journalism. — Its Rank as a Profession. — Earliest News- 
papers. — First Daily Paper. — PMladeljjhia Advertiser. — Boston 
Ccntinel. — National Gazette. — Controversy of Washington and 
Jefferson over Freneau. — Early Dailies in New York City. — 
Three Famous Editors. — Bitter Tone of the Press. — List of 
Distinguished Contributors. — Duels. — Early Journalism in New 
England. — Rude Methods of Collecting News and Circulating 
Papers. — Post-riders and Reporters. — The Deacon and the Mo- 
hawks. — Dailies in New York, Albany, and Rochester in 1826. — 
The Rochester Advertiser the First Daily Issued West of the 
Hudson and Delaware Rivers. — Henry O'Reilly. — Cincinnati 
Gazette and Charles Hammond. — Louisville Journal and George 
D. Prentice. — List of Celebrated Contributors in that Era. — 
Later Editors. — Charles A. Dana. — Henry J. Raymond. — John 
G. Whittier. — George William Curtis. 

It would be wholly aside from the purposes of this 
publication to give even an outline of the wide field 
of American journalism. I shall glance at it from 
my individual standpoint, and jot down little except 
selections from what I personally know on the sub- 
ject. 

Journalism not only ranks among the learned pro- 
fessions both in respect to the influence it exerts, and 
the intellectual qualifications necessary to succeed in 
it, but in peculiar fields it leads all the others. If 
some of our ablest lawyers were, without disclosing 
their names, to send editorial articles to the foremost 
city journals on topics outside of their profession, an 



"boston centinel" and "national gazette.*' 253 

impartial hand would frequently consign them to the 
waste basket. Kewspaper reporters of the thorough- 
ly trained school are superior to lawyers of the mid- 
dle class. It is a fact alike notorious and disgraceful 
that in some of the chief cities of the Union there are 
presiding justices in civil and criminal courts of large 
jurisdiction who can neither speak or write their na- 
tive language grammatically or clearly. It need hard- 
ly be added that such jurists (!) would not be toler- 
ated for a moment as reporters on respectable news- 
papers. 

The press in America rose to its present colossal 
dimensions from small beginnings. The first news- 
paper was issued at Boston in ITOl. Down to 1725 
four others were established in Boston, New York, 
and Philadelphia. They were little dingy sheets, 
measuring eight or nine inches by ten, issued weekly 
or fortnightl}^, with a very meagre supply of iDrains, 
news, advertisements, and subscribers. 

The first daily journal in the United States was the 
Daily Advertiser, published in Philadelphia in 1785. 
The great paper of the period was the Boston Centi- 
nel, edited by the famous Major Ben Kussell. It was 
intensely Federal, and the leading advocate in after- 
years of the policy of Washington and Adams in op- 
position to that of Jefferson and Madison. Its rival 
was the National Gazette issued at Philadelphia, then 
the seat of government, in 1791. Its editor was the 
celebrated Philip Freneau, a clerk in the office of Jef- 
ferson, Secretary of State in General Washington's 
Cabinet. Freneau was a caustic writer, voiced the 
bitter politics of that era, and was highly offensive to 



254 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

Washington, But, in spite of very direct hints to clo 
so, Jefferson refused to deprive him of his clerkship. 
In 1793 the Minerva was started in JN'ew York city, 
whose first editor was ^N'oah Webster, familiar to us 
as the distinguished lexicographer. It ultimately 
bloomed into the Commercial Advertiser. The New 
York Post was established in 1801. Both have flour- 
ished to this day. In 1801 there were three promi- 
nent editors in Xew York and Philadelphia, namel}^ : 
Coleman of the Post, Cheetham of the Citizen, and 
Duane of the Aurora. The first was a Federalist ; 
the two latter were Democrats. Mr. Duane was the 
father of that Secretary of the Treasury whom Gen- 
eral Jackson, a third of a century afterwards, ejected 
from office because he would not remove the Federal 
deposits from the United States Bank, and appointed 
Roger B. Taney to do the work. One morning in 
1801 the Post assailed its two opponents thus: 

" Lie on, Duane — lie on for pay, 
And Cheetham, lie thou too — 
More against truth you cannot say, 
Than truth can say 'gainst you." 

Think of the Evening Post of to-day lunging into 
two of its " esteemed contemporaries " in this style ! 
It seems to take all the originality out of Dr. Gree- 
ley's celebrated outburst : " You lie, yon villain ; you 
know you lie !" 

From the opening of Washington's second Presi- 
dential term till the end of Madison's administration, 
the tone of the press was to the last degree acrimoni- 
ous. Of the closing five or six years of this period I 
can speak of my own knowledge. My father was a 



EARLY JOURNALISM. 255 

Madlsoman leader in the eastern f)ortion of Connec- 
ticnt, and subscribed for several newspapers of that 
faith. The Federal leaders did the same by their 
journals. The consequence was, the men, women, and 
children of the vicinage became peppery partisans. 
So it was all through the country. Every neighbor- 
hood was kept in a broil by the " organs " of the two 
parties. Others besides their regular managers often 
contributed to their columns. Among these were 
John Adams, Timothy Pickermg, Joseph Story, Aaron 
Burr, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Edward Liv- 
ingston, De Witt Clinton, Matthew S. Davis, Wash- 
ington Irving, and Albert Gallatin. The pens of these 
prominent men were dipped in gall. Quarrels in those 
early days meant serious business. The wooded slopes 
of Hoboken were " the bloody assizes " to which many 
editors and politicians carried their I^ew York con- 
troversies for final arbitrament. 

To form a correct notion of the journalism of New 
England, and, indeed, of any portion of the countr}', 
eighty-one years ago, when I was born, we must dis- 
miss all existing ideas on the subject from our minds. 
Not only the telephone, the telegraph, the railway, 
and the steamboat must fade into mist, but even the 
mail, as a means of collectino- news and distributino; 
newspapers within circles of fifty or a hundred miles 
in circumference, must disappear. Editors, of course, 
existed, but the imagination did not dream of the re- 
porter, now one of the main driving-wheels of Amer- 
ican journalism, the essential, useful, and ornamental 
appendage to every newspaper, whether metropolitan 
or rural; a class not easily deceived or eluded, capa- 



256 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

ble of painting the tamest scenes in the liveliest col- 
ors, and, when in search of truth, may sometimes be 
tempted to supply deficiencies by inventions, but whose 
fictions are usually more entertaining than their facts. 
In the early days the nearest approach to the mod- 
ern reporter was the post-rider. When the weekly 
newspapers were printed at the county seat he took 
a pile in his "saddle-bags," mounted his horse, and 
rode into the surrounding towns to dispense his treas- 
ures and pick up a little local information for the next 
number. lie usually delivered the sheet in person, 
but here and there, at cross-roads, was a little box, 
adapted to shed rain, nailed to a tree, where he depos- 
ited a few pa])ers to supply some adjacent liamlet. 
When he delivered the papers he was often bored to 
drop an item or two of later intelligence than that in 
their columns. The following incident occurred in 
my native county seventy-five years ago : An aged 
deacon had a confused idea of the upper lakes and a 
mortal dread of the Mohawk Indians. He hung heav- 
ily on the skirts of the post-rider, v.iio resolved to 
shake him off. One day he handed him the paper, 
and the deacon bored him for fresh news. With hor- 
ror depicted on his countenance, he told the deacon 
that the Mohawks were digging through the l^anks 
of the Great Lakes, and that the water would soon 
pour down from the west, and that all New England 
would be drowned by a flood as disastrous as that of 
-N^oah's time. The jDost-rider then put spurs to his 
horse and fled. The terrified deacon ran to the min- 
ister and told him the terrible news. The clergyman 
opened the Bible and read to him, from Genesis, the 



THE FIRST DAILY NEWSPAPERS. 257 

promise of God that he would never again drown the 
earth bv a flood, and that he had set the bow in the 
cloud as a seal of this covenant with mankind. " Ah, 
my beloved pastor," responded the shivering deacon, 
"that don't apply. It is not God that's going to do 
it. God's nothing to do with it. It's them infernal 
Mohawk Injuns that's cutting down the banks !" 

A word in passing about the slow pace wherewith 
intelligence travelled in those days. One of the most 
important events of modern times was the battle of 
AVaterloo, fought on June 18, 1815. It changed the 
map of Europe and the face of the civilized world. 
Napoleon, wiio there fell to rise no more, had a great 
party in this country, and the deepest interest w^as 
felt in his fortunes after he escaped from Elba, which 
I remember as vividly as if it had happened in the 
last month. The battle of Ligny was fought on June 
16, when ISTapoleon defeated tough old Field-marshal 
Blucher. A slow-sailing packet left Liverpool for 
New York just in time to bring this news. No other 
packet Avas to sail in twenty days. This country, 
where party spirit ran high for and against the French 
emperor, was left in terrible suspense. The next pack- 
et was forty -five days in crossing, so that w^e received 
the news of AVaterloo sixty-five days, or more than 
two months, after the event, wdien Louis XVIII. w^as 
on the throne and Bonaparte was on the way to St. 
Helena. And how much do you think we got in our 
papers of the great transactions that followed after 
Ligny? A leading American journal devoted a third 
of a column to the subject, sparing five lines for a de- 
scription of the battle of "Waterloo. 



258 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

I have already said in these pages that I left my 
birthplace in Connecticut in April, 1826, for Eoches- 
ter, passing through New York and Albany. At 
that date New York City contained a population of 
155,000, Albany 15,000, Eochester 3500, Buffalo 4500, 
Cleveland 500, but Chicago was not even a dot on the 
map. I shall now refer only to daily newspapers. In 
April, 1826, the dailies in the metropolitan city num- 
bered six or seven, I recall the Gazette and General Ad- 
vertiser, the Mercantile Advertiser, the Commercial Ad- 
vertiser, \X\<d Post, the Advocate, the Enquirer, and the 
American. Albany then had two dailies — the Adver- 
tiser, Clintonian in politics, and the Argris, Demo- 
cratic. These nine were then the only dailies in the 
state. There was not a daily newspaper in the Union 
west of New York, Albany, and Philadelphia. I have 
previously stated that, in the fall of 1826, the Daily 
Advertiser was issued at Eochester. It was the ear- 
liest daily put forth between the Hudson and Dela- 
ware rivers on the East and the Pacific Ocean on the 
"West. Its first editor was Henry O'Eeill}^, Avhom I 
have known and respected for the past sixty years. 
(The news of his death at Eochester comes to me 
while I am revising this sheet of manuscript.) Tlie 
next daily newspaper Avest of Eochester and Phila- 
del])hia was the Commercial Register, issued at Cin- 
cinnati in 1826, a little later than O'Eeilly's Adver- 
tiser. It lived only six months. The Cinoinnati Ga- 
zette had been published for several years as a weekly 
and semi-weekly, when, on June 27, 1827, it aj)peared 
as a daily. Either then or immediately afterwards 
it came under the management of Chai-les Hammond, 



GEORGE D. PEENTICE. — CHARLES A. DANA. 259 

whom I occasionally met when I dwelt at Cincinnati, in 
1832, '33, '34, and '35. Mr. Hammond had been trained 
in the law. He wielded a keen pen, and stood at 
the head of the editorial profession in Ohio. All the 
"Whig newspapers of the West and Southwest, how- 
ever, were destined to be overshadowed by the Louis- 
mile Journal, founded in 1830, by George D. Pren- 
tice, of Pachaug. It is an interesting fact that these 
three daiUes — the Rochester Advertiser, the Cincin- 
nati Gazette, and the Louisville Journal — shine in 
undimmed lustre to-day. In this later epoch, as in 
the former, able men besides the regular editors wrote 
for the newspapers ; as, for example, John Quincy 
Adams, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Moses Stu- 
art, Caleb Cushing, William L. Marcy, Silas Wright, 
Benjamin F. Butler, William H. Seward, John A. Dix, 
William Wirt, Eobert BarneAvell Rhett, John C. Cal- 
houn, James Buchanan, Thomas H. Benton, Amos 
Kendall, Robert J. AValker, James G. Birncy, and 
Salmon P. Chase. Some of these gentlemen were 
frequent contributors to the press, and took an active 
share in the political controversies of their times 
through that powerful agency. 

I shall now refer more particularly to some of the 
editors of newspapers whom I have known, omitting 
Thurlow AYeed, Horace Greeley, and a few familiar 
names already described in these pages. The number 
of such editors is so large that a bare catalogue of 
them would fill a couple of pages. I must make se- 
lections from a list to everv one of whom I would, 
did space permit, pay a tribute of respect. 

For the past sixty years I have seen much of news- 



2G0 EANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

paper editors. During half of this long period I have 
occasionally contributed to journals mainly or wholly 
directed by Mr. Charles A. Dana. More thoroughly 
than any editor I have met he has what I call the 
true newspaper instinct. Prompt in judgment and 
rapid in execution ; quick to discern what Avill take 
with his clientage and what will not ; capable of per- 
forming a large amount of work in a short space of 
time ; ever welcoming valuable ideas and invoking 
picturesque diction wherewith to clothe them; fond 
of variet}^, pungency, wit, and good-humor, but, on 
sufficient provocation, hitting when he strikes and 
leaving a mark where he hits; if this countr}^ has 
produced an abler and more versatile occupant of an 
editorial chair I have not known or heard of him. It 
gives me pleasure to add that Mr. Dana was ever on 
the kindliest relations with his editorial associates, 
and always courteous to his employees. 

On the first of January, 1855, Daniel Cady resigned 
from the bench of the Supreme Court. Lieutenant- 
Governor Ilenr}^ J. Eaymond, editor of the Neio York 
Times, asked me to write him an article on the sub- 
ject. I complied with his wishes. This rapidly pre- 
pared production duly appeared in the Times, and, 
much to my surprise, it subsequently occupied twelve 
pages in the appendix to the eighteenth volume of 
" Barbour's Eeports of the l^ew York Supreme 
Court," where it was given the rather bigh-sounding 
title of " A Part of the History of the Bar and Bench 
of New York." Mr. Eaymond was a born journalist. 
He knew how to build up a successful metropolitan 
newspaper. He wielded a pointed and graceful pen 



HENKY J, RAYMOND. — JOHN G. WHITTIEE. 261 

in the editorial chair, \vrote v^ith. rare intelligence and 
skill on a great variety of subjects, was thoroughly 
versed in political questions, enjoyed a wide acquaint- 
ance with the public men of the country, was incisive 
and vigorous in controversy, spoke well on the plat- 
form and in deliberative bodies, and was an admira- 
ble presiding officer. As an editor, he delighted in 
perpetual war with Mr. Greeley and the JVew York 
Tribune. Mr. Eaymond Avas a lively companion, and 
told a story well. In a familiar conversation at a 
dinner-table in Washington he was asked why it was 
that Mr. Greeley called him '• The little villain of the 
Times.''' " Oh," replied Eaymond, " That is to distin- 
guish me from the big villain of the Trlhuner 

The person who should propose to introduce John 
Greenleaf Whittier as a poet, in any place whatever, 
would find that the name and fame of the Quaker 
bard had arrived there before him. But he is not so 
well known to the present generation as an editor of 
newspapers in his early days. Born in 1807, at Hav- 
erhill, on the banks of the beautiful Merrimac, he 
was eighteen j^ears old when, on a dark evening, he 
timidly slipped his first communication for the press 
into the box of the Gazette., in his native village, and 
could hardly believe his dazzled eyes as he afterwards 
furtively peeped into the columns of the paper and 
beheld his production staring in his face from the 
types. From his youth "Whittier was an admirer of 
Henry Clay, and, in 1829, he became the editor of the 
Boston American Manvfacturer^ a journal that advo- 
cated Mr, Clay's doctrines on protection. He succeed- 
ed his friend and brother bard, George D. Prentice, in 



262 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

the management of the Neio England WeeMy Review^ 
at Hartford, "when Prentice went to Kentucky, in 
1830, to estabhsh the Louisville Journal. In 1832 
Whittier returned to his first love, and for about six 
years was the editor-in-chief of the Haverhill Gazette. 
He removed thence to the city of Wilham Penn, on 
the shore of the Delaware river, and founded the 
Pennsylvania Freeman^ an anti-slavery weekly paper. 
He promulgated his principles in mild hues and win- 
ning ways for a year or two, when one of those 
unique and summary censors of the press and conserv- 
ators of the peace, commonly called a mob, sacked the 
office of the Freeman and burned it down, with its 
contents. In 1840 Mr. Whittier settled in what con- 
tinued to be for a long time his rural home, at Ames- 
bury, on the lower Merrimac. In 1846 or 184Y he 
became the corresponding editor of that successful 
and tasteful journal the JSational Era., established 
and built up by that able writer, Doctor Gamaliel H. 
Bailey. It will be remembered that Mrs. Stowe's 
Uncle Tom's Cabin" first appeared in numbers in 
the National Era. 

I became personally acquainted with Mr. Whittier 
in 1834 or 1835. I speak of him nov»^ only as a news- 
paper man. In the dozen years following 1835 I spent 
many months in his company, and travelled with 
him hundreds of miles in eight or ten states. Only 
those who know my shy friend well are aware how 
talkative, genial, witty, humorous, sarcastic, and en- 
tertaining he is in bright hours with two or three 
companions. Of course we have exchanged many 
letters in the past half - century. Peculiar circum- 



JOHN G. winTTip:R. 263 

stances induce me to break through my rule in respect 
to such correspondence, and print a recent note, mere- 
ly as a testimonial of my regard for the author, who, 
like me, is passing away. It may be well to say that 
my daughter, Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, of Eng- 
land, did not find Mr. Whittier at home : 

"Oak Knoll, Danvers, 8(h month, 23, 1886. 

"My Dear Stanton,— I have just got back from Holderness, 
jST. H., and find thy letter, introducing thy daughter. I regret that 
she -vvas not able to see me. I should have been glad to have met 
her, for my sake as well as thine. 

"My dear old friend, how glad I am to see thy writing once 
more. I wish I could shake the hand that wrote. What times we 
had together when we fought the wild beasts at Ephesus! I think 
over the old days a great deal. Life now is all behind me. Most 
of our early friends have passed away. Sewall and a few others 
still remain. But we arc really getting to be the "Last of the Mo- 
hicans!" 

" I hope thy health is good. I am only staying. I cannot write 
without suffering. 

"God bless thee, old comrade! Ever and faithfully thy friend, 

"John G. Whittier." 

This note from Mr. Whittier enclosed a copy, print- 
ed on a fly-sheet, of his poem to the memory of Sam- 
uel J. Tilden. 

I turn to an editor who joined the guild of jour- 
nalism just as the veteran we have been contemplat- 
ing was leaving it. It is difficult to find a niche in 
Avhich to place so versatile a man as George William 
Curtis. Is he an author? Yes. Is he an orator? 
Yes. Is he an editor ? Yes. Assign him to anv of 
these positions and the designation would be appro- 
priate. Though an eloquent speaker and debater, 
fitted to shine in popular and deliberative bodies, he 
has done the most of his life-work Avith the pen, and 



264 KANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

much of it on daily, weekly, and monthly periodical 
publications. In 1850 he became a regular writer on 
the Neic York Tribune. He was one of the original 
editors of Putnam's Monthly, and for many years 
past has been chief editor of the weekly journal of 
the great publishing house of Harper & Brothers, and 
a regular contributor to their Monthly Magazine. Mr. 
Curtis w^as nominated in 1864 for representative in 
Congress in the First District of Kew York, in which 
he resides, and w^hich w^as strongly opposed to his 
political views. He Avas defeated, as he doubtless an- 
ticipated, and failed to enter an arena where he would 
have taken high rank among the able and brilliant 
members. But, after all, he will perhaps be the long- 
est remembered for his distinguished services with pen 
and voice in the cause of " Liberty and Union" when 
it was in extreme peril. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

American Journalism. — Vice-President "Wilson and Charles Francis 
Adams. — James and Erastus Brooks. — The Keic York Express. — 
Lewis Tappan and David Hale. — The Journal of Commerce. — 
Early Modes of Getting News. — William Cullen Brj-ant and 
William H. Leggett. — Neto York Evening Post. — Courage of The 
Post. — President Van Buren. — James Watson Webb. — The Cou- 
rier and Enquirer. — Famous Duels of Cillcy, Graves, Webb, and 
Marshall. — Greeley's Comments. — Benjamin Day. — The (N. Y.) 
Sun. — James Gordon Bennett. — The New York Herald. — "It 
Does Move." — Brave Editors and Journals. — Joseph Tinker 
Buckingham and the Boston Courier. — Charles King and the 
New York American. — Charles Hammond and the Cincinnati 
Gazette. — James G. Birney. — Gamaliel II. Bailey. — Elijah Par- 
rish Lovejoy. — Cassius M. Clay. 

Vice-Pkeside>7t Wilson was in early days an editor 
of a Free-soil newspaper in Boston, in conjunction 
with Charles Francis Adams. Indeed, the latter was 
the founder and the leading contributor of the paper. 
At a later date Wilson wrote an elaborate book, in 
two volumes, entitled, '' The Rise and Fall of the 
Slave Power." Though the style is heavy, it is a 
valuable storehouse of facts. Of course, he gathered 
his materials as others do. He levied contributions 
among his friends. He assessed me to the amount 
of one hundred and fifty foolscap pages, which he 
wrought into the book. In coming j^ears, when some 
Macaulay shall compose a history of this great epoch, 
he will find Wilson's work a rich mine from which to 
draw materials. 
12 



266 KANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

In looking back to discover the few, the very fe\v, 
surviving editors of 'New York newspapers of early 
days, the eye naturally falls on the veteran Erastus 
Brooks. He held a high place in journalism for half 
a century, and is now an occasional writer for the 
press. The admirable letters that Mr. James Brooks 
"wrote, in 1835, to the Portland Advertiser, describing 
his tour on foot in Europe, which were extensively 
copied in this country, deepened the desire in many 
minds to travel in those enchanting lands. The model 
letters of Mr. Erastus Brooks, in the same year and 
the next to the Neio Yorh Daily Advertiser, from 
Washington, sketching scenes in Congress, in that 
exciting period, led many young men to visit the Na- 
tional Capital. The two brothers established the Xew 
York Daily Express in 1836. Under their manage- 
ment it rapidly reached the front rank among the 
city journals. One of its attractive features were 
the Washington letters of Erastus Brooks. In a re- 
cent communication to the present Mail and Exj)ress, 
he says of the founding of the E.rj)ress of 1836, that 
" the labor of starting a newspaper in ISTew York fifty 
years ago was intense, and required patience, courage, 
self-sacrifice, and persistent effort." In this commu- 
nication the venerable journalist gives the following 
interesting facts : " In the time of the writer," says 
Mr. Brooks, "as editor and proprietor, he has seen 
more than one hundred and twenty journals live and 
die in the citv of ISTew York alone, and he believes 
that more than twenty millions of dollars was spent 
in the city papers from 1836 to 1877. Only five of 
the one hundred and twenty journals in existence in 



ERASTUS CEOOKS. LEWIS TAPPAN. 267 

1836, and since then, survived in 1879, and one hun- 
dred and four had disappeared in the space of twenty 
years. In inexperienced hands the largest collection 
of sponges will not imbibe water as rapidly as new 
newspapers will absorb money." 

Mr, Brooks achieved distinction as a politician and 
a legislator. He was a leader in many sessions of the 
Senate and Assembly of Kew York, and in the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1867, and the Constitutional 
Commission of 1872. I have seldom heard his supe- 
rior in debate in deliberative or partisan bodies. No 
doubt he was somewhat indebted for his success in 
this field to his early training and long experience as 
an editor. He is an expert, too, in one occult branch 
of law. John C. Spencer, Samuel B. Buggies, Eras- 
tus Brooks, and Horatio Seymour were able to shed 
valuable light over the ecclesiastical tribunals of the 
Episcopal Church when they happened to be lay mem- 
bers of its conventions. 

Those who have known or heard of Lewis Tappan 
only as an enterprising merchant, or an Anti-slavery 
agitator, may be surprised to see him classed among 
newspaper editors. But this versatile and vigorous 
man finds an appropriate place there. He and his 
brother, Arthur, founded the New York Journal of 
Commerce in 1827, Lewis Tappan being editor-in-chief, 
and David Hale assistant editor. It vv^as established 
to promote the interests of the mercantile class, and 
to defend the doctrines of the Christian religion. Mr. 
Tappan soon became the sole proprietor, and he and 
Mr. Hale conducted it with so much ability and spirit 
that it early ranked among the most important news- 



268 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

papers in the commercial metropolis. Mr. Tappan ul- 
timately withdrew from its management, in order to 
devote his time more exclusively to their mercantile 
firm, then one of the largest silk houses in the city. 
The Journal of Commerce went into the control of 
those distinguished editors, Hale and Ilallock. In 1828 
this paper stationed a swift vessel off Sandy Hook to 
obtain the European news from inward-bound ships 
earlier than its contemporaries ; and at a subsequent 
date it ran a horse ex])ress from Philadelphia to Xew 
York, which enabled it to lay the proceedings of Con- 
gress before its readers a day sooner than the otlier 
journals. These projects (conceived and executed by 
Lewis Tappan and David Hale) may seem small to us, 
but the generation that had not dreamed of the land 
telegraph, the submarine wire, the telephone, or the 
railroad, looked upon them as extraordinary achieve- 
ments. 

In those days I knew Mr. Hale slightly. He was 
born in a lowly, one story, little clapboard house, in 
Lisbon, just across the Quinnebaug river from Jewett 
City. I need not say that I was associated witli Lewis 
Tappan all through the struggle for the overthrow of 
negro slavery. He was one of the bravest men I ever 
met. I have seen him stand for an hour while a mob 
was raining a tempest of missiles upon our assembly, 
and he seemed as cool as if sitting under the shadow 
of one of the spreading elms of his native North- 
ampton. 

The men of to-day have faint conceptions of the 
bitterness of the controversy over a protective tariff 
and the rechartering of the United States Bank and 



WILLIAM CDLLEN BEYANT. 269 

cognate questions which raged in Jackson's adminis- 
tration. Fart 3^ lines sometimes crossed, as in the 
memorable struggle over the nullification theories, 
engendered in the fertile brain of John C. Calhoun. 
On this subject Jackson and Benton were in accord 
Avith Webster and Clay. Durino^ the whole of this 
historic crisis the New York Evening Post was per- 
haps the ablest journalistic supporter of the princi- 
ples and measures espoused by the Jackson party. It 
Avas with the hero of the " Hermitage " on the tariff, 
the bank, and nullification, and was against Clay, 
Webster, and the Whigs in all these measures except 
the last. During this troubled period Mr. Bryant con- 
trolled the columns of the Post^ but through a por- 
tion of it he was assisted by the more fiery pen of 
William Leggett. Indeed, it is only stating the exact 
truth to say that Mr. Leggett was a more vigorous and 
versatile journalist than Mr. Bryant. Mr. Van Buren 
Avas inaugurated as President in March, 1837. The 
slavery contest Avas then at its height. Yan Buren 
bent to the storm, and in his inaugural declared that 
he Avould veto any act Avhich Congress might pass for 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
In an editorial in his oAvn separate paper, just then 
started, Leggett keenly criticised Yan Buren's ad- 
dress, saying that, as to any explicit recommendation 
of measures, the President might as well have sung 
" Hail Columbia " or Avhistled " Yankee Doodle." 

And noAA^ an event occurred in the history of the 
Evening Post that is Avorthy of special commendation. 
Yan Buren and Wright had foreshadoAved the Sub- 
treasury scheme. The outbreak against the projiosed 



270 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

financial policy was without a precedent in violence. 
It was to the last degree unpopular with the mone- 
tary and trading classes. But the Post, though pub- 
lished in the banking and commercial metropolis of 
the Union, firmly stood by the President and his Sub- 
treasury scheme, while in the same columns it held 
up to indignation and contempt his pledge to inter- 
pose his veto against any bill that should emancipate 
the slaves in the district. To fully estimate the cour- 
age and fidelity of the Post in this conjuncture it 
must be borne in mind that, probably, no two propo- 
sitions were ever so unpopidar in the city of ]^[ew 
York as were the Sub-treasury measure and the proj- 
ect of setting the negroes free at the national cap- 
ital. 

It is wise to contemplate instances of journalistic 
independence and courage. The Democratic party 
had imbibed the infatuated idea of strengthening 
themselves bv extending the area of negro slavery. 
In spite of the longer vision of Van Buren, Benton, 
Wright, and Blair, the slavery propagandists deter- 
mined to annex Texas to the Union for the purpose 
of planting the baleful institution therein. A small 
band of Democrats resisted this wild scheme from the 
moment of its inception. Van Buren and his fol- 
lowers in New York looked askance at the project, 
but hardly dared to speak up like men, and wither it 
in the bud. But the Evening Post did not hesitate 
to follow Avhere duty led. It denounced the plot, ex- 
posed the ulterior objects of the conspirators, and fore- 
told (which subsequently came to pass) that its con- 
summation would prostrate the Democratic party and 



JAMES WATSON WEBB. 271 

bring calamity on the country. Week after week the 
Post glowed with indignation against the policy of 
annexation, so pregnant of present evils, so full of 
future disasters. Mr. Bryant, in this contest, had 
many coadjutors at his side, but among Democratic 
journals the Post stood almost alone. 

James "Watson Webb founded the New York Cour- 
ier and Enquirer in 1820. His career as a journalist 
and politician are too well known to justify special 
recital here. For the first twenty years of its long 
life the Courier and Enquirer ranked among influen- 
tial journals. At the outset it supported the admin- 
istration of General Jackson in the bold and vehement 
style so characteristic of its editor-in-chief, and cham- 
pioned the President in the earlier stages of his con- 
flict with Nicholas Biddle and the United States Bank. 
By and by a change came over the newspaper, and, 
from being an ardent opponent of the Whig policy of 
renewing the Charter of the Banks, it became a zeal- 
ous advocate of that measure. Of the alleged discov- 
eries of a Congressional Committee, and the subse- 
quent charges of corruption by Jonathan Cilley, a 
Democratic member of the House from Maine, and 
Colonel Webb's challenge of Cilley to a duel, and Cil- 
ley's refusal to meet him for the asserted reason that 
Webb was not a gentleman, and the taldng-up of the 
quarrel by William J. Graves, a Kentucky Congress- 
man, the second of Webb, and the killing of Cilley in. 
a duel with Graves, when Graves called him to the 
field because Cilley had said that Graves was the 
bearer of a hostile message from an individual who 
w^as not a gentleman — of this famous, foolish, and fa- 



272 EANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

tal fray I shall record notliing, though I was familiar 
with the transactions at the time they occurred. 

The Courier and Enquirer now became a prominent 
Whig journal, under the management of Webb. He 
was an aggressive editor, indulged in pungent person- 
alities, and courted contradiction and conflict. He 
charged some of the Kentucky delegation in Congress 
with corruption respecting the Bankrupt Act. Thomas 
F. Marshall, a Kentucky member, scarified Webb on 
the floor of the House. Soon afterwards Marshall 
came to Kew York to defend Monroe Edwards, a man 
of considerable repute, Avho was arraigned on an in- 
dictment for forgery. AVebb commented sharply in 
his newspaper on the conduct of Marshall in leaving 
his scat in the House to appear at the bar of a crim- 
inal court in a distant city. Day by day the Courier 
and Enquirer blazed away at Marshall. Tlie niglit 
befoi-e he was to sum up for Edwards he addressed a 
note to Webb, telling him that he should reply to his 
attacks at the opening of his speech. Colonel Webb 
ap})eared in court, and Marshall, by way of exordium, 
denounced him in a bitter philippic. The result was 
a challenge to a duel. The ]xirtics went to Delaware 
for the purpose. They fought, and Webb was wound- 
ed in the leg. I often saw him on his crutclies. The 
affair created much excitement, and upon his return 
to N^ew York Webb was indicted for leaving the state 
to fight a duel. He was found guilty, and sentenced 
to two 3^ears in the state prison. So great was the 
sympathy expressed for him that his friends, irre- 
spectiv^e of party, circulated petitions praying for his 
pardon. Among the most cons])icuous of the seven- 



GREELEY AXD WEBB. 273 

teen thousand names appended to the petitions was 
that of Horace Greeley, editor of the JSew York Trih- 
line, then a rival of the Courier and Enquirer. Mr. 
Seward was Governor of the state, and a personal 
friend of Webb. After Webb had been in the Tombs 
a few weeks the Governor gave him an unconditional 
pardon, and saved him from the state prison. 

I have related this little piece of history about 
Marshall, Webb, Greeley, and Seward, as an introduc- 
tion to a bit of biography concerning Webb and Gree- 
ley. I must here draw on my memory for details, 
and shall give only the substance of the editorial ar- 
ticles in question. Though each was a Whig " organ," 
the Tribune and the Courier and Enquirer 'were con- 
stantly in a broil. One morning Webb handled Gree- 
ley with severity in a long editorial. He referred to 
the peculiar dress which Greeley wore, asserting that 
he appeared on Broadway in an uncouth garb merely 
to arrest the attention of passers-by. The next morn- 
ing the Tribune contained an elaborate reply, going 
over Webb's article point by point. The last subject 
taken up by the philosopher of Spruce Street was 
Webb's reference to his dress. I give only the sub- 
stance of Greeley's paragraph relating to this matter. 
"As to our personal appearance," he said, "it does 
seem time that we should stay the flood of nonsense 
with which the town, by this time, must be nause- 
ated." He then went on to tell how he came to l^ew 
York with scarcely a dollar in his pocket, and worked 
as a journeyman printer ten or a dozen years, and 
how he had toiled till he had become the conductor 
of a leading journal of the country. Greeley closed 
]2- 



274 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

his cutting rejoinder by a reference to his efforts to 
procure Webb's pardon from the state prison, about 
in these words : " That he " (Greeley) " ever affected 
eccentricity is most untrue ; and certainly no costume 
he ever appeared in on Broadway or elsewhere would 
create such a sensation as that which James AYatson 
Webb would have worn but for the clemency of Gov- 
ernor Seward. Heaven grant that our assailant may 
never hang with such weight on another Whig exec- 
utive. We drop him." 

I heard at the time that when Webb read this out- 
burst of Greeley he broke into a laugh, and said he 
forgave the irate philosopher. 

The Courier and Enquirer covered so long a period 
that its vicissitudes would furnish an epitome of the 
history of Kew York journalism. At various times 
Colonel Webb had for his chief of staff George II. 
AndrcAvs and Henry J. Eaymond. The latter rose 
till he practically became the principal editor. The 
old paper waned after Eaymond left it to build up 
the 7r}nes, and in 1860 it lapsed into the World. 

1 recall the day, in 1835, when the first number of 
the JVeio York Herald was sold in the streets by a 
dishevelled set of brawling news boys, "price one 
cent." These a:reasv and noisy youths were the 
grandfathers of the lively and audacious gamins of 
our times. The Sun, though, was the first permanent 
daily penny paper in the Union. It was issued in 
September, 1833, by Benjamin Day, three years in. 
advance of the Herald. 

On coming to New York from Lane Seminary, in 
May, 1834, or 1835, to address the American Anti- 



BENNETT AXD THE " HERALD." 275 

slavery Society (I Avas present in both years), I ascer- 
tained that Lewis Tappan had purchased a column in 
the little <Sii}i, with the privilege of using that column 
as a medium of publishing, at advertising rates, such 
matter as he pleased. He and Elizur AVright kept 
it well sup])lied Avith anti-slavery facts and ligures. 
When the Herald arose it eclipsed the Sun. James 
Gordon Bennett was a canny Scotchman, and pos- 
sessed the genuine newspaper genius. His unique 
journal opened a fresh epoch in that department of 
literature. Some time after its establishment I de- 
livered half a dozen lectures in the city on the Slavery 
question, especially with reference to the then en- 
dangered right of petition and freedom of discussion. 
They were reported in the Herald, after a fashion, 
accompanied by harmless ridicule of the subject and 
the speaker. A friend recently sent me those copies 
of the Herald. I was interested in measuring the 
space the country had passed over in the intervening 
half-century. " It does move I" said Galileo. 

Early remembrances in regard to newspapers are 
so strong upon me that I must refer to two or three 
exceptional cases, if it is only to record their names. 
AVhile I Avas living in Jewett City, George D. Prentice 
induced me to subscribe to the Neio England Galaxy., 
published in Boston by the intrepid Joseph Tinker 
Buckingham, and to Avhich Prentice Avas a contrib- 
utor. I kept the editor in mind through a dozen 
changing years after I had ceased to read the produc- 
tions of his pen. Meanwhile he had founded and 
raised to eminence the Boston Daily Courier. AYhen 
I Avas mobbed in Massachusetts in the 3'ears 1835, '36, 



276 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

'37, '38, Mr. Buckingham occasionally defended liber- 
ty of speech in able articles in the columns of the 
Courier. His caustic pen blistered the enemies of 
free discussion with stinging epithets. The like meed 
of praise can be bestowed on the New York American^ 
then holding an unusually high literary rank among 
the daily newspapers of the city. It was conducted 
by Charles King, the son of llufus King. In that 
proscrii)tive era, when journals issued in commercial 
centres that traded with the South hardly dared to 
vindicate even the right of petition, the Cincinnati 
Gazette, under the management of Charles Hammond 
(previously mentioned), ventured to speak more brave- 
ly in support of liberty and law than perhaps any 
other daily newspaper printed on the banks of the 
lower affluents of the Mississippi Eiver. Those Avere 
indeed troublous days in that portion of the Union. 
James G, Birney's and Gamaliel II. Bailey's printing 
presses and t^^pes were more than once submerged in 
the Oliio at Cincinnati, and Elijah Parrish Lovejoy 
vras shot to death by citizens while protecting his 
press and t^'pes from a like fate at Alton. It is pain- 
ful to hold up to view the dark side of this picture. 
It is far more agreeable to point to the silver lining 
that soon afterwards began to tinge the edges of the 
sombre cloud. 

The five brave journalists just mentioned have 
passed away. One of a later period, who suffered in 
the same cause, survives to publish the history of his 
own perils, which, viewed in some aspects, were greater 
than theirs. I refer to Cassius M. Clay. The freedom 
of the press never had a more heroic champion than 



CASSIUS M. CLAY. 277 

this distinguislicd son of Kentucky. The first time I 
saAV him was in 1844, at Boston, in a great meeting 
that he "vvas addressing in supjiort of the election to 
the Presidency of his relative, Henry Clay. The last 
time I saw him was at Johnston, N. Y., in 1884, when 
I was called to the chair of a meeting which he ad- 
dressed in support of the election of James G. Blaine. 
In the intervening forty years Mr. Clay had rendered 
important services in behalf of the slave, especially 
in his native state, both on the platform and through 
his newspaper, the Tnie American. His life was fre- 
quently put to hazard ; his blood Avas shed in encoun- 
ters with foes whom he contrived to overmaster in 
more than one hand-to-hand deadly affray. The 
liberty of speech and of. the press owes more to him 
than to any other citizen of Kentucky. Portions of 
his recently published autobiography read like a tragic 
novel. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

American Journalism. — Religious Newspapers. — Albany Journals 
and Editors: The Argus, Atlas, aud Evening Journal; Croswell, 
Weed, Cassidy, Van Dyck, Sliaw, Dawson, Wilkoson. — Names 
of Thirty Persons whose Obituary Notices were Written by the 
Author in Various Journals. — Death of Gerrit Smith in Decem- 
ber, 1874. — Several State Conventions. — Tweed Exposes bis 
Persecutors at Rochester in 1871. — Conkling and Fenton Cross 
Swords at Syracuse in 1871. — Tilden Nominated for Governor 
in 1874, Robinson in 187G, Cornell and John Kell}' in 1879. — 
Speech -flaking and Reporting. — Meeting at Providence in 1806. 
— The NeiD York Times. — Isaac Ilill and the Concord Patriot. — 
John INI. Niles and the Ilnrtford Times. — Newspaper Corre- 
spondents Writing Speeches for Senators and Congressmen, and 
Reports for Committees, and Messages for Governors. — Press 
Club Receptions in 1885. — Extract from President Amos J. 
Cumming's Speech; he is Elected to Congress in November, 
1886. — The Great Newspaper District he Represents.- 

Though a little late, I will say, that in the heat of 
the assault upon the Southern oligarchy, when epi- 
thets were not alwavs carefully chosen by the assail- 
ants on either side, the charge was made that the 
rehgious newspapers in the North were opposed to 
the anti-slay ery enterprise. Tliis was at one period 
the attitude of journals of that class in large cities, 
but Ayas neyer true of those published in the country 
districts and smaller towns. I occasionally contrib- 
uted to the religious press, and I afltirm that in the 
later stages of our conflict with the baleful institution, 
and especially in the ciyil war, it was a powerful 



THE CLERGY IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONTEST. 279 

agent in the work of securing the freedom of the 
slave and the preservation of the Union. 

These journals Avere controlled by clergymen, and 
Avhat I have said of their newspapers will hold good 
of the body of the ministers in the North from the 
opening of the Anti-slavery contest to its close. They 
were unjustly accused of liostility to emancipation. 
This was true for a time in a partial sense of those 
Avho preached to the wealthy, aristocratic churches 
of the chief cities, but it was otherwise with those of 
the rural districts, and with the ministers of two or 
three of the most populous sects, as, for example, the 
Methodists and Baptists. I speak from ])ersonal ob- 
servation when I assert that in the trying crisis of our 
struggle there were no firmer champions of the slave 
than the mass of tlie Northern clergy. Indeed, and 
to state the case exactly, some abolitionists hated 
ministers more than they hated slave-holders. As 
Alvan Stewart once quaintly put it in a convention, 
" Some of our people seem unable to get under way 
till they have given the ministers a black eye." 

In the conflicts between the Barnburners and the 
Hunkers, the young Albany Atlas was the organ of 
the former, and the venerable Albany Argus of the 
latter. William Cassidy, the editor of the Atlas, was 
a versatile writer. He was assisted by the solid abili- 
ties of Henry H. Yan Dyck and the sparkling wit of 
John Yan Buren. Edwin Croswell, who had long 
managed the Argus, was trained in the Albany Ee- 
gency, a political organization that controlled the 
Democratic party in New York for twenty years. 
He was an editor of rare gifts. He encountered an 



280 RANDOM KECOLLECTIONS. 

opponent worthy of his bhule in Mr. Weed, of the 
Albany Evenhuj Journal. The Argus, at a later day, 
came under the able direction of Mr. S. M, Shaw, now 
of the Cooperstown Freeman's Journal, and absorbed 
the Atlas. In those days Governor Marcy wrote 
occasionally for the Argus. The veteran George 
Dawson took the helm of the Evening Journal after 
the brilliant pen of Mr. Samuel Wilkeson disapi)eared 
from its columns. In the vicissitudes of parties from 
1848 to 1858, I occasionally wrote as a volunteer for 
all of these influential newspapers. It Avould please 
me to speak of the later days of the Journal and the 
Argus, and of those comparatively modern ncAvs- 
papers at the state capital, the Times, the Press, and 
the Ejqvess / but I must move on. 

I have never been, in the strict sense of the phrase, 
on the editorial staff of either the JVeio YorJc Trihune 
or the New York Sun. But for the past thirty-two 
years I have written largely for each in turn, and 
mostly in the editorial columns. The questions I 
treated were of every variety. There is one topic, 
however, to which I will particularly refer. It often 
devolved upon me to prepare obituary notices of dis- 
tinguished persons. They exhibit the defects of rapid 
writing, for they were produced under the pressure 
of emergencies that would permit of no delay. I re- 
call the following names of subjects, selected at ran- 
dom : Daniel Cady, John Brown, Salmon P. Chase, 
Charles Sumner, Robert Eantoul, Horace Greeley, 
Thaddeus Stevens, John A. Dix, William Cullen Bry- 
ant, William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin F. Wade, 
William Pitt Fessenden, Ilenr}'- Wilson, Gerrit Smith, 



DEATH OF GEKRIT SMITH. 281 

Daniel S. Dickinson, William H. Seward, Sanford 
E. Church, Tlmrlow Weed, James Watson Webb, 
Arphaxad Loomis, Reuben E. Fenton, Robert L. Stan- 
ton, Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, Henry 
O'Reilly, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Rev. Thomas S. 
Shipman, Mrs. Daniel Cady, Mrs. Gerrit Smith, and 
Mrs. Lucretia Mott. It gave me a melancholy pleasure 
to strew stray flowers on the graves of some of my 
coadjutors in a great cause. 

On Sunday afternoon, December 28, 1874, I called 
at the house of General John Cochrane, in New Yorlc, 
and there learned that Gerrit Smith had that morn- 
ing been stricken with apoplexy, and was lying un- 
conscious in the chamber above. That manlv form 
was waging a desperate battle for life. Ilis attending 
physician. Dr. Edward Bayard, my brother-in-law, in- 
formed me that it was quite possible he might live 
till the next day. Late in the evening it occurred to 
me that I would go to the San office, and prepare an 
obituary notice of the friend whom I had known for 
forty years. I dictated it to a shorthand writer. It 
would fiU Ave columns. The hour of midnight ar- 
rived, when it must be decided whether or not it was 
to go into print. There Avas no one to confer with 
but the night editor. I finally sent the article to the 
composing-room, where they prefixed to it the start- 
ling heading, " Gerrit Smith's Deathbed." On Mon- 
day morning the Stoi took the town by surprise. 
General Cochrane's house was filled with reporters. 
Mr. Smith died about noon. Towards evening I 
dropped into the Sun office. The night editor rushed 
up to me, his eyes all aglow, and, seizing my hand, 



282 RANDOM EECOLLECTIONS. 

exclaimed : " Mr. Stanton, that was one of the grand- 
est newspaper beats that ever happened in Kew York I 
And how fortunate it is for us that Mr. Smith died 
to-day ! Tlie glorious old man did not go back on us. 
It would have been very embarrassing if he had re- 
covered." The enthusiastic outburst of the night 
editor may be regarded as the very effervescence of 
the esprit de corps of journalism. 

For several years I attended state conventions of 
both parties in New York, and superintended the 
reports of their doings for the Sun, by a stenographer, 
who minded his business and let mine alone. It was 
easy to describe what had transpired to-day, but it 
was diificult to foreshadow what was to occur to- 
morrow. I was ofttimes able to do the latter, be- 
cause I had long been personally acquainted with the 
leaders of factions, and they would accept my assur- 
ance that the information they imparted would not 
be disclosed to others, though both sides understood 
that the facts were to appear in the Sun. 

I was at the Democratic State Convention at 
Rochester in 1871. The exposures in the New Yorl; 
Times of the frauds of the Tweed Eing had startled 
the country Democrats. ]Srevertheless, the delegates 
from the city were, as usual, under the absolute control 
of Tweed. I am now to speak of the evening before 
the convention organized. Ultimate results would 
depend upon whether the Tweed delegation on the 
morrow demanded seats therein. I knew it was the 
purpose of such Democrats as Governor Seymour, 
Mr. Tilden, Chief-Judge Churcli, and Senator Francis 
Kernan to exclude them ; and Mr. Tilden had counted 



WILLIAM M. TWEED. 283 

his followers, and feared no failure. Tweed did not 
know this. At midnight I met Mr. Tweed alone, by 
appointment, in his private apartment, where he w^as 
to explain to me his programme for the morrow. 
The scene will long remain in my memory. The 
chandelier in the large room was turned low, and the 
elaborate furniture cast ghastly shadow^s on the walls. 
The fallen boss, whom I was wont to see in the ful- 
ness of his strength, was nervous and sad. In a voice 
slightly tremulous with emotion, he said the creden- 
tials of the Tammany delegates w^ould not be pre- 
sented. He surprised me with the frankness of his 
utterances. I will not name those of his persecutors 
to whom he said he had previously paid money, for a 
vein of bitterness tinged his conversation. At a later 
date, Tweed was sacrificed to save others who were 
as guilty as himself. While in prison, in the fall of 
1877, he Avas drawn into detailed disclosures of the 
robberies of the Ring by promises which were not 
kept. Though a public plunderer, he was as honest 
as some of his prosecutors. 

I was at many state conventions on the like errand 
with that just described. As, for example, at the 
Republican Convention of 1871, at Syracuse, when 
Conkling and Fenton crossed swords, and the latter 
was grievously wounded ; and at the Democratic 
Convention of 1874, where Samuel J. Tilden received 
authority to break up the Canal Ring, which he after- 
wards executed ; and at the Democratic Convention 
of 1876, which placed Lucius Robinson in a station 
that enabled that sour politician to disrupt and almost 
destiw his jmrty ; and at the Republican Convention 



284 KANDOM EECOLLECTIOXS. 

of 1879, where Alonzo B. Cornell surprised his oppo- 
nents by winning the Gubernatorial nomination, and 
after\vards beat his antagonist at the polls by aid of 
a flank movement of John Kelly. 

In the !N'ew England campaign of the spring of 
1860, which foreshadowed the election of a Republi- 
can President (perchance his defeat !), I met in Provi- 
dence, where I was to speak, Mr. Joseph Howard, Jr., 
representative of the Neio Yorlc Times. Supposing I 
had prepared a written address, he asked me for a 
copy for tlie Times. Not a word of my speech was 
on paper, but, according to my usual habit, the outline 
was before my eye. We repaired to my room. Mr. 
Howard posed as the Slave Power. For nearly an 
hour I upbraided him for his long-continued aggres- 
sions upon the liberties of the people and the Con- 
stitution of his country. Though evidently a little 
disturbed in his mind at this vivid portrayal of his 
manifold iniquities, he nevertheless rallied sufficiently 
to take down the speech and emphasize its sharp 
points with " loud applause." This was written out, 
sent to the Times, and put in type before the meeting 
was held, for, be it remembered, the telegraph was far 
less used for such purposes then than it is now. The 
larffe and tumultuous meeting lasted till near mid- 
night, and the next morning the speech I had hurled 
at the Slave Power in the person of Joseph Howard 
three days previously appeared in the Times, and sev- 
eral thousand copies of the paper were purchased for 
circulation in Rhode Island. 

An old-time friend in Congress happened to meet 
me in Washington, and asked me to write a speech 



ISAAC HILL. — JOHN M. NILES. 285 

for liim on the tariff, a subject he said he understood 
about as well as the average ISTew-Zealander. I did 
as he requested. He read the speech in the House, 
and circulated a large edition. It was translated into 
German, his astonislied constituents presented to him 
a set of silver plate, and he was re-elected. 

As pure acts of personal friendship (for I never 
took a penny for such services), I did this for Eepre- 
sentatives and Senators whose names "shone afar" 
in the Federal councils. I was a little disgusted once 
when a prominent Senator, by an awkward fumbling 
of his manuscript, missed a brilliant passage over 
which I had burned a large amount of midnight gas. 
I felt as bad, perhaps, as Mrs. Isaac Hill, of New 
Hampshire, did in Van Buren's day. She was lean- 
ing over the rail of the Senate gallery while her hus- 
band was reading a speech. She startled the strange 
ladies around her by exclaiming : " There ! Mr. Hill 
has turned over two leaves at once !" Mr. Hill was 
an accomplished editor, and therefore able to write 
his own speeches. So was John M. Niles, of Con- 
necticut. Senator Hill built up the Concord 'P atriot ; 
Senator Niles the IIarifo)'d Times. Senators and 
Eepresentatives that can neither write nor speak 
ou2:ht to resio-n in favor of editors who can do one 
or both. 

What I have stated above is only a sample of a 
common occurrence at Washington and elsewhere. 
I am often astounded at the eloquence of some of our 
public men ! Bursting on the country so unexpected- 
ly, too ! 

JSTewspaper correspondents do a lucrative business 



286 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

at Washington in writing speeches for Senators and 
Representatives. Indeed, so common is this that 
whenever I see an exceptionally able set speech by 
an inferior member of either House, I am constrained 
to exclaim, " That is a good speech ; I wonder what 
newspaper man wrote it ?" The enterprising corre- 
spondent who sold the same speech to two Congress- 
men, each of whom delivered it as his own, rather 
imposed on his victims, especially as he himself hired 
a third person to write it. So did the reporter who 
copied the best passages in the speech he furnished 
to his dupe from an old book in the Congressional 
library. There should be honor among such people. 

This line of remark will now and then apply to 
reports from Congressional committees and the ex- 
ecutive departments, and to Governors' messages and 
emanations from State Legislatures. Oh, well, if 3'ou 
don't know how to do a thing yourself, is it not best 
to invoke the aid of somebody w^ho does ? 

Persons not well informed on this subject are not 
aware how frequent is the practice of palming on the 
public writings, and e'^pecially speeches and orations, 
which are the productions of others than their reputed 
authors. Over and over again men have sent articles 
to newspapers and magazines, and even books to pub- 
lishers, claiming them as emanations of their own 
pens, who, when it came to revising the proofs, were 
not capable of recasting or rewriting a paragraph. 

On June 27, 1885, the day when I completed the 
eiglitieth year of my age and the sixtieth since I be- 
gan to write for newspapers, the ISTew York Press Club 
gave me a reception at their rooms in the city. Tlie 



A:!kIOS J. CUMMINGS. 287 

proceedings were elaborately reported. I omit every- 
thing except the closing portion of the speech of Mr. 
Amos J. Cummings, then president of the Club. I 
print this because it presents some curious informa- 
tion concerning several distinguished editors and au- 
thors. 

" Glance over Mr. Stanton's past," continued Mr. 
Cummings, " He was born four years before Abraham 
Lincoln. When he began to write for newspapers, 
Lincoln was employed at six dollars a month to man- 
age a ferry across the Ohio, at the mouth of Anderson's 
Creek. Stephen A. Douglas was a boy twelve years 
old, living with his widowed mother on a sterile Ver- 
mont farm. Fred Douglass was a pickaninny on a 
Maryland plantation. Horace Greeley had not yet 
entered a country printing-office. Thurlow Weed was 
editing a dingy weekly newspaper. Charles Dickens 
was a boy thirteen years old, employed in an attorney's 
office. Thackeray Avas a boy of fourteen, attending 
school in London. William CuUen Bryant had just 
come to this city. James Gordon Bennett was trying 
to establish a commercial school here. Llenry J. Eay- 
mond and Charles A. Dana were wearing check aprons 
at district schools. Erastus Brooks was attending a, 
grocery in Boston. James Watson Webb was an ad- 
jutant in the regular army. Manton Marble, George 
W. Cliilds, and William Henry Hurlbert were en- 
wrapped in the cocoon of futurity. A. K. McClure 
was just learning to walk. Joseph R. Ilawley had 
just been born in a country town in Korth Carolina. 
John W. Forney was a boy nine years old, running 
around unshod ; and scores of other newspaper men 



288 RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS. 

wlio have won fame and fortune were not even liter- 
ary larv£e." 

Mr. Cummings, in November, 1886, was elected by 
an almost unanimous vote to the Fiftieth Congress 
from the sixth district of New York. His varied ex- 
perience as a journalist will enable him to carry to 
the House of Representatives an amount of rare in- 
formation, that will be valuable in a body that is 
always composed very largely of lawyers. For exam- 
ple, the House of the Fortj^-ninth Congress contains 
325 members, of whom 245 belong to the legal pro- 
fession. The Sixth New York District doubtless issues 
more newspapers and periodicals than any other Con- 
gress district in the United States. The total num- 
ber is 418, consisting of daily, semi-weekly, weekly, 
bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, bi-monthly, and 
quarterly publications, printed in fourteen different 
languages. This is fifty-five more than are issued in 
Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi combined, which 
three states send twenty-one members to Congress. 
The Sixth District, too, is the seat of many of the 
great book-publishing houses of the country. It is 
also alive with job printers, who do press-work of all 
imaginable descriptions. It is entirely appropriate 
that such a district should be represented in Congress 
by so competent a journalist as Mr. Cummings. 



CHAPTER XXTX. 

Conclusion.— Retrospect. — Extract from Thomas Moore's '-'Oft in 

the Stilly Night." 

As I turn my eye back over the fourscore years 
covered by this narrative, I am deeply impressed with 
the sad thought that nearly all the persons of whom 
I have written are in the spirit-land, and that some of 
the more distinguished have entered its portals since 
the first edition of this work was issued. As I ap- 
proach the goal I may be pardoned for quoting, ere 
laying down the pen, the familiar lines of Moore : 

"When I remember all 

The friends, so linked together, 
I've seen around me fall 
Like leaves in wintry -n-eather, 

I feel like one 

Who treads alone 
Some banquet hall deserted, 

Whose lights are fled, 

Whose garlands dead, 
And all but he departed." 

13 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Abinger, Lord, 93. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 149, 150, 

156, 163, 265. 
Adams, John, 72, 255. 
Adams, John Quiucy. 19, 31, 33, 

49, 50, 58-60, 83, 158, 159, 163, 

259. 
Allen, Charles, 149. 
Allen, William, 153, 242. 
Andrews, George II., 274. 
Andrews, Stephen Pearl, 281. 
Anthony. Susan B., 68. 
Armstrong. John, 218. 
Arnold, Benedict, 5, 6. 
Arnold, Matthew, 91. 
Astor, John Jacob, 189-191. 
Atchinson, David R., 154. 
Avery, Ephraim K., 112, 113. 

Babcock, George R., 171. 
Bailey, E. Prentiss, 68. 
Bailey, Gamaliel, 66, 75, 263, 276. 
Bailey, Wesley, 66. 
Baines, Edward, 76. 
Ballantyne, Sergeant, 91. 
Banks, Nathaniel P., 61. 
Barker, George P., 155, 160. 
Barkesdale, William, 208, 209. 
Barnard, Daniel D., 35. 
Barnes, Albert, 45, 185. 
Bates, Edward, 222, 224. 
Bayard, Edward, 281. 
Beaconsfield, Lord, 83. 
Beardsley, Samuel, 51, 161. 
Beecher, Harriet, 68. 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 44, 45. 
Beecher, Lyman, 43-46. 
Beekman. James W., 171, 172. 
Belknap, Jeremj', 16. 
Bellamy, Joseph, 12. 



Beman, Nathan S. S., 45. 
Benjamin, Judah P., 204. 
Bennett, James Gordon, 275, 287. 
Bentham, Jeremy, 106. 
Benton, Thomas'H., 61, 153, 154, 

259 
Bickford, Maria, 113,118,119,121. 
Biddle, Nicholas, 103, 153, 206. 
Bigelow, John, 160. 
Binnev, Thomas, 76. 
Biruev, David B., 48. 
Birnev, James G., 47-49, 58, 6o, 

75, 259, 276. 
Bishop, Joel Prentiss, 126. 
Black, Jeremiah, 212. 
Blaine, James G., 154, 185. 
Blair, Francis P. (Senior), 154, 

183, 220. 
Blair, Francis P. (Junior), 223. 
Blair, Montgomery, 222. 
Blatchford, Samuel, 143. 
Blucher, Field .ALarshai, 257. 
Booth, Junius Brutus, 96. 
Bouck, William C, 30, 161. 
Boughton, Selleck, 132, 133. 
Bowman, John, 30. 
Bowring, John, 76. 
Brandreth, Beniamin, 171. 
Breckenridge, John C, 203. 
Brewster, Henrj^, 51. 
Brewster, Simon, 3, 6. 
Brewster, Susan, 3. 
Brewster, William, 3, 108. 
Bright, John, 76, 101. 
Bronson. Greene C, 129. 
Brooks, Erastus. 266, 267, 287. 
Brooks, James, 266. 
Brougham, Henry, 75, 77-81, 85- 

87, 106. 
Brown, John (Capt.), 191, 280. 



292 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Browu, Judge, 50. 
Brown, Tom, 158. 
Brummel, Beau, 90. 
Brunswick, Duchess of, 76. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 63, 103, 

160, 214, 269, 277, 287. 
Buclianan, James, 152, 154, 204, 

207. 259. 
Buckingham, Joseph Tinker, 275. 
Buclvingham, William A., 54. 
Buller, Charles, 76. 
Bulwer, Edward Lylton, 85. 
Bunyan, John, 108. 
Burden, Henry, 141, 142. 
Burke, Edmund, 87, 92, 108, 116. 
Burleigh, Charles C, 71. 
Burleigh, William H., 71. 
Burns, Robert, 103, 109. 
Burr, Aaron, 255. 
Burroughs, Roswell, 13. 
Burroughs, Silas, 13. 
Butler, Benjamin F. (Albany), 31, 

32, 158, 160, 163, 164, 259. 
Butler, Benjamin r.(Lowell), 227. 
Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 76, 85, 

86, 87. 
Byron, Ada Augusta, 104. 
Byron, Lady, 76, 104. 
Byron, Lord, 76, 104. 

Cad3^ Daniel, 35, 74. 130, 131, 139, 

140, 260. 
Cady, Elizabeth, 74. 
Cagger, Peter, 136-138. 
Calhoun, John C, 61, 84, 114, 152, 

154, 259. 
Calvin, Delano C, 145. 
Cambreling, Churchill C, 160, 

161. 
Cameron, Simon, 164, 213, 222. 
Campbell, Thomas, 76, 102, 103, 

107. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 104, 105. 
Carnot, L. N. M.,228. 
Carroll, Thomas B.,160, 171, 220. 
Cass, Lewis, 154, 157, 158, 161, 

179-183, 212. 
Cassidy, William, 160, 279. 
Chace, William M., 194, 195. 
Chalmers, Thomas, 105, 106. 



Channing, William Ellerj', 71. 
Chapman, Maria W., 51. 
Charlick, Oliver, 182. 
Chase, Edward L, 224. 
Chase, Salmon P., 66, 154, 163, 

220, 222-225, 238, 239, 259. 
Cheetham, James, 254. 
Child, Lvdia Maria, 67. 
Childs, George W., 287. 
Choate, Joseph H., 90. 
Choate, Rufus, 111, 113, 115-119, 

121 124 151 
Church, Sanford E., 155, 160, 

171, 174. 
Cilley, .Jonathan, 271. 
Clark, Daniel, 143. 
Clark, Thomas M., 52. 
Clarkson, Thomas, 75, 76, 86, 87, 

107. 
Clay, Cassius M., 66, 276, 277. 
Clay, Henry, 19, 20, 28, 32, 38. 39, 

61, 84, 152-154, 158, 205, 206, 

217. 
Clayton, John M., 152. 
Cleveland, Chauncey F., 54. 
Clinton, De Witt, 23, 31, 32, 132, 

218,249,255. 
Cochrane, John, 202. 
Colden, Cadwallader D., 22. 
Coleman, William, 254. 
Comstock, Oliver C, 40. 
Conkling, Roscoe, 32, 154, 198, 

198, 199, 2.36, 240, 241. 
Conolly, Richard B., 247. 
Cook, James M., 171. 
Copley, John, 79. 
Cornell, Alonzo B., 240. 
Cornell, Maria, 112. 
Corning, Erastus, 141. 
Corwin, Thomas, 151, 200,201, 213. 
Cottenham, Lord, 92, 93. 
Cowen, Eseck, 129, 135, 136. 
Cox, F. A. (D.D.), 76. 
Crandell, Prudence, 66, 67. 
Crawford, IMartin J., 208, 209. 
Crawford, William H., 19. 
Creraieux, Isaac Adolphe, 93. 
Crittenden, John J., 151, 152. 
Crolius, Clarkson, 171. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 92, 97, 98, 208. 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



293 



Croswcll, Edwin, 160, 279. 
Cummin,2;s, Amos J., 287, 288. 
Curtis, Benjamin R., 124. 
Curtis, George William, 263, 264. 
Curtis, Samuel R.. 234. 
Cushing, Caleb, 57, 58, 259. 

DaboU, Nathan, 16, 17. 

Dana, Charles A., 186, 220, 241, 

246, 260, 287. 
Daniels, Alfred, 124. 
Daniels, George, 123, 124. 
Dart, William A., 171. 
Darwin, Doctor (Senior), 228. 
Davis, David, 221. 
Davis, Henry Winter, 202. 
Davis, Jefferson, 210. 
Davis, Matthew S., 255. 
Davis, ]N:oah, 236. 
Dawson, George, 280. 
Day, Benjamin, 274. 
Decatur, Stephen, 6, 7. 
Deuio, Hiram, 129, 135. 
Denman, Lord, 93. 
Derby, Earl, 83. 
Dexter, Lord Timothy, 72, 73. 
Dickens, Charles, 287. 
Dickinson, Andrew B., 223, 224. 
Dickinson, Daniel S., 154, 160, 

178, 180, 212. 
Disraeli, Benjamin, 83, 85. 
Dix, John A., 146, 154, 160, 174, 

184, 212, 218, 246, 259. 
Dixon, James, 213. 
Doolittle, James R., 213. 
Dorsheimer, William, 246. 
Doudas, Stephen A., 154, 203, 

200, 212-214, 287. 
Douglass, Frederick, 68, 150. 
Dow, Lorenzo, 13, 14. 
Duane, William, 254. 
Durham, Earl, 81. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 12. 
Edwards, Monroe, 272. 
Elliott, Ebenezer. 103. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 105. 
Emmet, Robert, 84. 
Evarts, William M. , 115, 193, 217, 
218. 



Everett, Edward, 259. 
Ewing, Thomas, 39. 

Fanning. Charles, 19, 20. 

Farrar, Canon, 91. 

Feutou, Reuben E., 143,154,160, 

236-239, 249. 
Fessenden, Samuel, 54. 
Fessenden, William Pitt, 54, 213. 
Field, David Dudley, 160, 171, 

214. 
Fillmore, Millard, 36,40. 
Finney, Charles G., 40-42, 45, 63. 
Fish, Hamilton, 171,172. 
Flasg, Azariah C, 30, 158, 160. 
Flint, Abel, 16. 
Folger, Charles J.. 160. 
Follett, William, 93. 
Folsom, Abigail, 70, 93. 
Forney, John W.. 287. 
Forrest, Edwin, 96. 
Forster, William E., 76, 90, 101. 
Foster, La Fayette S., 123. 
Foster, Stephen S., 70, 213. 
Fox, Charles James, 87, 108. 
Fox, George, 70. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 72, 100. 
Fremont, John C. , 8, 54. 
Freneau, Philip, 253. 
Fry, Elizabeth, 70. 

Gallatin, Albert, 255. 
Gardiner, Addison, 35, 160. 
Garfield, James A., 241. 
Garrison, William Lloyd, 51, 52, 

65, 69, 71, 72, 164. 
Geddes, George, 171. 
Giddings, Joshua R., 66. 
Gladstone, William Ewart, 84, 

101. 
Goodell, William, 66. 
Goodrich, Samuel G., 49. 
Gould, Jacob, 32. 
Graham, Sylvester, 62, 63. 
Granger, Francis, 22. 
Grant, Ulysses S. , 43. 
Graves, William J., 271. 
Greeley, Horace, 47, 63, 107, 154, 

186, 214, 217, 218, 220, 222, 259, 

273, 287. 



294 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Green, Andrew IL, 180. 
Green, Aslibel, Dr., 45. 
Green. Beriah, 51, 66. 
Grey (Earl, 1st), 77, 79, 80, 81. 
Grey (Earl, 2d), 83. 
Grey, Lady Jane, 97. 
Griten, John, 134. 
Grimke, Angelina, 67. 
Grimke, Saraii, 67. 
Grow, Galusha A., 143,207. 
Grundy, Felix, 153. 
Guizot, F. P. G.,75. 
Gurncy, Samuel, 76. 

Hale, David, 267, 268. 
Hale, John P., 127, 128.213. 
Hallett, Benjamin F., 125, 126. 
Hamilton, Alexander, 255. 
Hamlin, Hannibal, 213, 219. 
Hammond. Charles, 258. 
Hancock, John, 72. 
Hardy, Commodore, 6, 7. 
Harris, Ira, 217, 218. 
Harrison, AVilliam H., 151. 
Hart, Levi, 12. 
Hastings, Hugh J., 241. 
Hastings, Warren, 80, 92, 108. 
Hawlcy, Jesse, 132, 133. 
Ilawley, Joseph 11., 66, 287. 
Hawley, Reverend Mv., 66. 
llaydon, Benjamin R., 76, 77. 
Haves, Rutherford B., 242. 
Hayne, Robert Y., 50. 
Head, George, 119, 120, 121. 
Hendrick.?, Thomas A., 154. 
Heyrlck, Elizabeth, 60. 
Hill, Isaac, 285. 
Hill, Nicholas, 135, 136, 137, 138, 

140, 160. 161. 
Hoar, E. Rockwood, 115. 
Hoar, George F., 115. 
Hoar, Samuel, 113, 114, 115. 
Hoffman, John T., 248. 
Hoffman, Michael, 155, 160, 173, 

175. 
Holman, William S., 143. 
Hopkins, Samuel, 12. 
Houston. Sam, 183. 
Howard, Joseph, Jr., 984. 
Howick, Lord, 83. 



Howitt, Mary, 76. 
Hubbard, Samuel, 123. 
Hugo, Victor, 104. 
Hume, David, 89. 
Hunt, Washington, 159. 
Himter, John, 223. 
Ilurlbert, William Henrv. 287. 
Hutchiuson (The family), 70. 

Irving, Washington, 255. 
Isambert, Frauc;ois Andre, 93. 

Jackson, Andrew, 19, 31-33, 103, 

154, 205. 
Jackson. Francis, 65. 
James, John Angell, 70. 
James, William (Senior), 40. 
James, William (Junior), 40. 
Jay, John, 255. 
Jay, William, 65. 
Jefferson, Joseph, 13. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 3, 142, 148, 

149. 
Jeffrey, Francis, 106. 
Jeffreys, George, 98, 99. 
Johnson, Andrew, 209. 
Johnson, Richard M. , 61. 
Johnson, Samuel, 90, 107. 
Johnson. William(LawReportcr), 

129, 135. 
Jones, Edward F. , 225. 
Judson, Andrew T., 67= 

Keau, Charles, 26. 
Kean, Edmund, 26, 27. 
Kcitt, Lawrence M., 207, 209. 
Kellogg, William, 208. 
Kelly, John, 284. 
Kendall, Amos, 259. 
Kent, James, 129, 143. 
Kernan, Francis. 282. 
King, Charles, 62, 276. 
King, Preston, 160. 
King, Rufus, 164, 218. 
King, William R., 152. 
Knapp, Frank, 113. 
Knapp, Joseph, 113. 
Knox, John, 105. 

La Fayette, The Marquis, 20. 



IISTDEX OF XAMES. 



295 



Lamartine, Alphonse, 93. 
Lampson, Father, 70. 
Lapliam, Eibridge G., 240. 
Lawrence, Abbott, 114, 115, 150. 
Lawrence, James, 9. 
Leavitt, Joshua, 65. 
Ledyard, William, 6. 
Lee, Charles M., 133. 
Letrgctt, William, 269. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 134, 209, 212, 

214, 216, 231, 223, 233-235, 

287. 
Lincoln, ]\Irs. Abraham, 221. 
Littlejohn, De Witt C, 218, 246. 
Livingston, Edward, 255. 
Livinjiston, Peter R., 23. 
Longfellow, Henry W., 103. 
Loomis, Arphaxad, 155, 160. 
Lord, Ilezekiah, 12. 
Loring, Charles G., 124. 
Lovejoy, Elijah Parrish, 66. 
Lovejoy, Owen, 207, 233. 
Lovelace, Ladj^ 76, 104. 
Lushiugton, Stephen, 76. 
Lyndhurst, Lord, 78, 79. 

McClellan, George B., 227. 
McClure, Alexander K., 287. 
McDonald, Joseph E., 154, 243. 
JMcPheeters, Dr., 234. 
Macaulay, Tliomas Babington, 

80, 83, 84, 85, 106. 
Mackenzie, Alexander Slidell, 

145, 146. 
j\racreadj% 96. 
Madison, James, 7, 9, 10. 
Madison, Mrs. James, 152. 
Mallory, James, 30. 
Mann, Abijah, 160. 
Mann, Charles A., 171. 
Mann, Horace, 149. 
Mansfield, Lord, 139. 
Marble, Manton, 287. 
Marcy, William L., 30, 37-40, 

154, 160, 218, 249, 259. 
]\Iarlborough, Duke of, 108. 
Marshall, John, 112, 139. 
Marshall, Thomas F., 60, 272. 
Martindale, Henry C, 184. 
Marvin, Dudley, 35. 



Mason, James M., 210. 

Mason, Jeremiah, 111-113, 118, 

204, 210, 211. 
Mason, John, 4. 

Matteson, Orsamus B., 198, 199. 
May, Samuel J., 65,67. 
Melbourne, Lord, 78, 79, 82. 
Mellen, George Yv"., 70. 
Miantonomoh, 45. 
JMiller, Warner, 240. 
Monro, Timothy, 37. 
]\Iontgomery, James, 103. 
]\Ioore, Thomas, 23. 
Morgan, Christopher, 215. 
Morgan, Edwin D., 218, 219, 236- 

238 
Morgan, William, 24, 36, 37. 
IMorpelh, Lord, 75. 
Morse, Jedediah, 16. 
Moses, Franklin J., 114. 
IMott, Lucretia, 67, 281. 
Murat, Joachim, 83. 
Murray, Lindley, 16. 

NapoleonL.79, 228, 257. 
Napoleon III., 94. 
Ncal, John, 54. 
Nelson, Horatio, 6. 
Nelson. Samuel, 129, 138, 143. 
Niles, John ]\[., 285. 
Noah, Mordecai M., 22. 
Noxen, B. Davis, 35. 
Noyes, Edward F., 242. 
Noyes, William Curtis, 215. 
Nye, James W., 156, 160. 

O'Connell, Daniel, 75, 83, 84, 87, 

103, 107, 108. 
O'Connell, John, 107. 
O'Conor, Charles, 161. 
Opie, Amelia, 76. 
O'Reilly, Henry, 26, 258. 
Orr, Jaiues L., 207. 

Paddleford, Seth, 213. 
Parker, Amasa J. (Senior), 246. 
Parker, jMary S.,51. 
Parker, Samuel Dunn, 119, 131. 
Parker, Theodore, 128. 
Parley, Peter, 49. 



296 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Partridge, Alden, 29. 
Patch, Sum, 27. 
Patterson, George W., 171. 
Payne, Henry B., 154. 
Pease, Elizabeth, 76. 
Peel, Robert, 83, 84 
Penn, William, 53. 
Pennington,AVilliam,61,201,202. 
Penn}', Joseph, 40. 
Perr}^ Oliver Hazard, 8, 9. 
Phelps, Amos A., 65. 
Phillips, Stephen C, 149. 
Phillips, Wendell, 66, 69, 71. 
Pickeriiiix, Timothy, 255. 
Pierce, Franklin, 126, 153. 
Pierpont, John, 65. 
Pillsbnry, Parker, 70. 
Pitt, William (Senior), 79, 228. 
Pitt, William (Junior), 87, 104. 
Piatt, Thomas C. 240. 
Polk, James K., 60, 157, 158. 
Pollock, Frederick, 93. 
Porter, John K., 136. 137, 138. 
Porter, Peter B., 155. 
Porteus, Bishop, 87. 
Prentice, George D., 17, 18, 26, 

259 275 
Pi^ston, William C, 152. 
Purvis, Robert, 69. 

Quincy, Edmund, 70. 
Quincy, Josiah, 70. 

Randolph, John, 108. 
Rantoul, Robert, 280. 
Raymond, Henry J., 154, 260, 

261 287. 
Re~dfield, Heman J., 30. 
Reynolds, Marcus T., 138, 139. 
Rhett, Robert Barnwell. 60, 259. 
Richmond, Dean, 156, 160. 
Ritchie, Thomas, 154. 
Rives, William C, 152. 
Roberts, Marshall 0.,237. 
Robinson, Lucius, 283. 
Root. Erastus, 22. 
Ruggles, Samuel B., 267. 
Russell, jMajor Ben, 253. 
Russell, Lord John, 77, 82. 
Russell, Lord AVilliam, 108. 



Sackett, Garry v., 196-198. 
Sanford, Nathan, 218. 
Sargeaut, John, 152. 
Sassacus, 4. 
Scarlett, James, 92. 
Schofield, John. 19. 
Scott, Walter, 108, 177. 
Scott, Wiufield, 180. 
Scribncr, Charles, 75. 
Selden, Samuel L., 35. 
Seward, William H., 33, 34, 36, 

142, 154, ]69, 170, 203, 204,210. 

212-219, 221-223, 225, 241, 242, 

259. 
Seymour, Henry, 29, 30. 
Seymour, Horatio, 29, 30, 154, 

155, 160, 238, 239, 267. 
Sharp, Granville, 87, 107. 
Shaw, Lemuel, 110, 116. 
Shaw, Samuel M.,280. 
Sheridan, Richard B., 92, 108. 
Sherman. John, 200. 201. 
Sherman. Roger, 115. 
Sherman, William T.. 61. 
Shipman, Thomas L., 281. 
Simmons, James F., 213. 
Slidell, John, 146, 203, 204, 210, 

211. 
Smith, Caleb B., 222. 
Smith, Gerrit, 27, 51, 65, 146, 168, 

281, 282. 
Smith, Green, 191. 
Smith, Horace E., 120. 
Smith of N. C.,201. 
Smith, Peter, 189, 190. 
Smith,Sydncy, 80, 81,106. 
Southard, Samuel L., 152. 
Southwick, Solomon, 33. 
Spencer, Ambrose, 129, 146. 
Spencer, John C, 31, 35, 145, 

146, 267. 
Spencer, Joshua A., 139. 
Sprague, Peleg, 110. 
Sprague, WiUiam, 213. 
Stanley, Dean, 91. 
Stanley, Lord, 83. 
Stanton, Edwin M., 222, 228,233. 
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 68. 
Stanton, Joseph (Senior), 2. 
Stanton, Joseph (Junior), 2. 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



297 



Stanton, Lodewick, 2. 

Stanton, Robert Lodewick, 234, 

251. 
Stanton, Susan, 3, 4. 
Stanton. Thomas. 2. 
Stephens. Alexander H., 214. 
Stetson, Charles, 180. 
Stevens, Samuel. 13&-141. 
Stephens. Thaddeus, 208, 209. 
Stewart, Alvan, 51, 53, 65,134,135. 
Stone, Lucy, 67. 68. 
Storrs, Henry R.. 35, 132. 
Story, Joseph, 110, 113, 126, 255. 
Stowe, Calvin E., 68. 
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 68, 262. 
Stuart, Charles E., 211. 
Stuart, Moses, 259. 
Sturge, Joseph, 76. 
Sumner, Charles, 125, 126. 
Sutherland. Jacob, 129. 
Swift, Jonathan. 108. 
Sydney, Algernon, 108. 

Taft, Alpbonso. 242. 
Talfourd, Thomas Noon, 85, 93. 
Tallmadge, James, 23. 164. 
Tallmadsre, Nathaniel P., 152. 
Taney, Roger B., 152. 254. 
Tappan, Arthur, 65, 267. 
Tappan, Lewis, 51, 52, 65, 267, 

268, 275. 
Taylor, John W. , 38, 164. 
Taylor, Nathaniel W., 45. 
Taylor, Zachary, 159, 162, 164,204. 
Tecunifjeh, 61. 
Temple. William, lOS. 
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 

287. 
Thompson, Smith. 33. 129. 
Thurman. Allen G.. 154. 242. 
Tilden, Samuel J., 154, 160-162. 

238, 244-248. 
Tirrell, Albert J., 113. 118, 119, 

120, 121. 
Tompkins, Daniel D., 247. 
Toombs, Robert, 203, 204, 210. 
Tracey, Albert H., 149. 
Trumbull, Lyman, 213. 
Tucker, Beverly, 210. 
Tucker, Ephraim, 7, 8. 

13* 



Tucker, Luther, 26. 

Turner, Nat, 47. 

Tweed. William M., 22, 247, 283. 

Tyler, John, 151. 

Tytler, Alexander Fraser, 16. 

Uncas, 4, 5. 

Vallandigham, Clement L., 239. 
Van Buren. John, 154, 155, 160, 

162, 165. 279. 
Van Buren. Martin, 31-33, 38, 58, 

61. 130, 146, 154, 157-160, 162- 

164. 205, 223. 
Vanderbilt, Cornelius J., 144, 145. 
Van Dyck, Henry H., 279. 
Van Ness, William W., 130. 
Van Rensselaer, Stephen, 31. 
Van Vechten, Abraham, 136. 
Villiers, C. P., 76. 

Wade, Benjamin F., 154, 203, 204, 

213. 
Wadswortb, James S., 156, 160, 

214, 216, 220. 
Wait, John T.,123. 
Waldo, Horatio. 12. 
Walker, Robert J., 153, 212, 259. 
Walworth, Reuben H., 142, 143, 

161. 
Ward, Ferdinand, 43. 
Ward, Ferdinand D. W., 43. 
Wardlaw, Ralph, 76, 106. 
Warren, Samuel, 137. 
Washburne, Elihu B., 208. 
Washington. George, 70, 72, 148. 
Watterson, Henry, 17. 
Wayne, ]Mad Anthony, 133. 
Wei)b, James Watson, 271-274, 

287. 
W^ebster, Daniel, -39. 50. 61. 84, 

96, 110, 112, 113,116,118, 149- 

152, 154, 205, 206, 217. 
Webster, Noah, 16. 
W^ed, Thurlow, 24-27, 33, 36, 38, 

154, 169, 170, 215, 216, 259, 

2^7 
Weldi Theodore D., 57, 65. 
Welles, Gideon, 220, 233. 
Wellington. Duke of, 77. 79. 



298 



INDEX OF NAMES. 



Wendell, John L. (Law Reporter), 

135. 
White, HughL., 153. 
White, Joseph. 113. 
Whiteficld, Gcoriro, 13. 
Whitehou.su, Heury J., 40. 
Whittier, John G., 53, 57, 65, 71, 

72, 103, 261-263. 
Whittlesey, Frederick, 25. 
Wilbar, William, 122, 123. 
Wilberforce, William, 87, 107. 
Wilde, Judge, 124. 
Wiley, John, 75. 
Wilkeson, Samuel (Senior), 28. 
Wilkeson, Samuel (Junior), 280. 
William III, 99, 108. 
Williams, Benjamin, 122, 123. 
Williams, Elisha, 35, 130-132. 
Williams, Josiah B., 168-170. 



Williams, Roger, 4, 14, 228. 
Williams (Theatre Manager), 36, 

27. 
Wilmot, Eardley, 76. 
Wilinot, David, 40. 
Wilson, Henry, 50, 265. 
Windham, William, 87. 
Winthrop, Robert C, 150, 159. 
Wirt, William, 259. 
Wise, Henry A., 60. 
Wolfe, James, 2. 
Woodward, Samuel B., 148, 149. 
Wright, Elizur, 48. 65, 275. 
Wright, Frances, 28. 
Wright, Silas. 22, 38-40, 61, 152, 

154, 157-160, 162, 218, 249, 259. 

Young. Samuel, 32, 160, 161. 
Younglove, Truman G., 237, 238. 



THE END. 



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